bp Trinidad and To­ba­go LLC (bpTT) has an­nounced the in­stal­la­tion of the top­sides of its Cas­sia Com­pres­sion (Cas­sia C) plat­form off Trinidad’s east coast.

An of­fi­cial re­lease from bpTT notes that the in­stal­la­tion marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the Cas­sia C project which will en­able bpTT to ac­cess and pro­duce low pres­sure gas re­serves from cur­rent­ly-pro­duc­ing fields in the Greater Cas­sia area, there­by max­i­miz­ing re­cov­ery from these ex­ist­ing re­sources.

The Cas­sia C top­sides were fab­ri­cat­ed at the Al­tami­ra fab­ri­ca­tion yard, Mex­i­co and ar­rived in Trinidad and To­ba­go on Ju­ly 15.

Michael Daniel, Project Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, bpTT ob­served:

“We have marked an im­por­tant step in the Cas­sia Com­pres­sion project with the in­stal­la­tion of the top­sides. This is a great achieve­ment for the teams in Mex­i­co and T&T which had to work through chal­lenges brought about by COVID-19. The Cas­sia Com­pres­sion project will be a ma­jor com­po­nent of im­prov­ing our pro­duc­tion de­liv­er­abil­i­ty and the in­stal­la­tion of the top­sides brings us one step clos­er to first gas.”

The jack­et, or legs, and bridge land­ing frame of the Cas­sia C plat­form were built at TOF­CO’s fa­cil­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go and were in­stalled in Feb­ru­ary 2020.

The next step in the project will be hook up and com­mis­sion­ing of the Cas­sia C plat­form.

Gas pro­duc­tion from the Greater Cas­sia Area will be rout­ed to the Cas­sia C plat­form for com­pres­sion be­fore be­ing trans­port­ed via the ad­ja­cent ex­ist­ing Cas­sia B plat­form. Cas­sia C will be lo­cat­ed 57 kilo­me­tres off the south-east coast of Trinidad. The plat­form will have a through­put ca­pac­i­ty of 1.2 bil­lion stan­dard cu­bic feet of gas a day (bcfd).

First gas from the plat­form is ex­pect­ed in 2022.

Pro­duc­tion from Cas­sia C will be ap­plied to ex­ist­ing con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions.

Nat­ur­al gas has a key role to play in the en­er­gy tran­si­tion and the Cas­sia Com­pres­sion project rep­re­sents bpTT’s com­mit­ment to run­ning a gas busi­ness that is safe, re­li­able and re­silient.