Video Update: Anadarko's Lucius Spar Positioned in Gulf

Mark Green
Posted October 28, 2013

This summer we posted on Anadarko’s Lucius spar, the 605-foot-long steel tube that would support the company’s newest Gulf of Mexico production platform. Now Anadarko has released three videos of operations to tow the 23,000-ton spar 340 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, where it was erected in more than 7,000 feet of water and will be fitted with its topsides – the platform the company expects will begin producing oil the second half of next year. This is must-see video.

The first video shows the spar arriving earlier this year from Finland, where the basic structure, or hull, was built, to a fabrication yard in Corpus Christi, where additional preparation work on the spar occurred and where its topsides platform is being assembled:

The second video captures towing operations in August to move the finished spar out of Corpus Christi Bay into the Gulf and the journey to the Keathley Canyon block, where it was upended and moored to float vertically in the ocean:

The final clip shows last month’s installation of the sub cellar deck to the floating spar, upon which the rest of the production platform, or topsides, will rest:

As we noted in the earlier post, the engineering involved with building and setting up a deep-sea production platform is breathtakingly cool. It’s an example of the way Anadarko and other companies are working to turn America’s domestic oil and natural gas wealth into the energy we need to run the economy and our every-day lives, producing jobs and economic stimulus every step of the way.