BP started oil production recently at its Argos offshore platform in the deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
BP is the operator with 60.5% working interest. Co-owners include Woodside Energy (23.9%) and Union Oil Company of California, an affiliate of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (15.6%).
With a gross production capacity of up to 140,000 barrels of oil per day (boed), Argos is BP’s fifth platform in the Gulf of Mexico and the first new BP-operated production facility in the region since 2008. The semisubmersible platform will eventually increase BP’s gross operated production capacity in the Gulf of Mexico by an estimated 20%. BP expects to ramp up production from Argos through 2023.
BP is a leading producer in the deepwater Gulf, operating five production platforms: Argos, Atlantis, Mad Dog, Na Kika and Thunder Horse. BP also holds interests in four non-operated hubs: Great White, Mars, Olympus and Ursa.
BP anticipates its production in the U.S. Gulf will grow to about 400,000 boed net by the mid 2020s, and will average 350,000 boed in the 2020s.
Construction on Argos began in March 2018 at Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea. Argos arrived at Kiewit Offshore Services fabrication yard in Ingleside, Texas, in April 2021 after completing a two-month, 16,000-mile trip onboard the Boskalis BOKA Vanguard semi-submersible heavy transport vessel. After final preparations and regulatory inspections, Argos was towed 380 miles offshore to the well sites for final hook up and commissioning work.
“The start-up of Argos is a fantastic achievement that helps deliver our integrated energy strategy – investing in today’s energy system and, at the same time, investing in the energy transition," BP CEO Bernard Looney said: in a statement. "As BP's most digital facility worldwide, applying our latest technologies, Argos will strengthen our key position in the Gulf of Mexico for years to come.”
BP said Argos is the centerpiece of its Mad Dog Phase 2 project, which extends the life of the super-giant oil field discovered in 1998. It is one of nine high-margin major projects that bp plans start up by the end of 2025 globally.
Argos is BP’s most digitally advanced platform in the Gulf of Mexico, featuring BP’s proprietary LoSal Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and Dynamic Digital Twin technologies. Argos has a waterflood injection capacity of more than 140,000 barrels of low-salinity water per day to help increase oil recovery from the Mad Dog field. The platform also has a Dynamic Digital Twin, a BP patent-pending software that links complex data from Argos to 3-D digital models of those systems. This permits remote operators wearing virtual reality headsets to access data in real time to improve decision-making, efficiency and safety.
