Young: De Novo's Zandolie platform 'a proud moment' for energy sector

ENERGY Minister Stuart Young has described the completion of the new Zandolie exploration platform as a proud moment for energy company De Novo and Trinidad and Tobago. He made this comment on Monday at the Point Lisas Industrial Estate, ahead of the platform's sail-off.

After a tour of the platform, Young said, "The 100 per cent local fabrication of the Zandolie platform is further proof of the capabilities within the energy service industry to construct high quality and complex structures, and to make the necessary adaptations to reduce carbon emissions."

He added, "Zandolie demonstrates a continued optimism within the upstream to take practical steps to advance the sustainability agenda."

Young was confident there would be a successful delivery of natural gas from Zandolie from the middle of this year.

"I commend DeNovo for its efforts to align the Zandolie platform design and fabrication with the Government’s low carbon and local content efforts.” He also expressed Government's willingness to continue to work with DeNovo.

Its managing director, Bryan Ramsumair said, “This critical milestone in DeNovo’s second field development, highlights the drive by the team to constantly improve and learn. We pushed ourselves to deliver a greener and more local platform."

The result, he continued is that the Zandolie platform is a 100 per cent local fabrication and will be 100 per cent powered by renewable energy. Ramsumair said this "will significantly contribute to our continued efforts to minimize the carbon footprint of our operations.”

Construction of the platform was completed at the United Engineering Services Ltd (UESL) local fabrication yard with zero loss time incidents (LTIs), 104,376 man-hours and at the height of construction 119 people were employed. In addition to fabricating the platform in country, Zandolie's drilling campaign will be executed by the local Well Services Rig 110.

The Zandolie platform will be a single well, conductor supported platform with a nameplate capacity of 40 mmscfd. Modifications to the Iguana infrastructure were completed in November 2021 as Zandolie will be connected to it. DeNovo estimates that it will deliver first gas from the Zandolie development within the first half of 2022.