Chevron Corporation has announced it has sanctioned the Ballymore project in the deepwater US Gulf of Mexico. The project, with a design capacity of 75,000 barrels of crude oil per day, will be developed as a 3-mile subsea tieback to the existing Chevron-operated Blind Faith platform.
“Chevron’s US Gulf of Mexico production is some of the lowest carbon intensity production in our portfolio at around 6 kg CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent and is a fraction of the global industry average,” says Steve Green, president of Chevron North America Exploration and Production. “Once complete, Ballymore is expected to add a reliable supply of US-produced energy to help meet global demand. The project is designed to lower development costs by using a subsea tieback approach, standardised equipment and repeatable engineering solutions – leveraging existing operated infrastructure.”
“Sanctioning the Ballymore field development, only 4 years after the discovery, is the result of our exploration efforts in the Gulf of Mexico,” says David Mendelson, Senior Vice President Americas of TotalEnergies Exploration & Production. “Thanks to its tie-back development concept, this decision fits TotalEnergies’ strategy of focusing on oil projects with low breakeven and low emissions.”
Ballymore will be Chevron’s first development in the Norphlet trend of the US gulf. The project will be in the Mississippi Canyon area in around 2,000 metres of water, about 260 kilometres southeast of New Orleans. Potentially recoverable oil-equivalent resources for Ballymore are estimated at more than 150 million barrels.
The project, which involves three production wells tied back via one flowline to the nearby Blind Faith facility, will require an investment of approximately USD 1.6 billion. Oil and natural gas production will be transported via existing infrastructure. First oil is expected in 2025.
Chevron subsidiary Chevron U.S.A. Inc. is the operator of the Ballymore project with a 60% working interest. Co-owner TotalEnergies E&P USA, Inc. has a 40% interest.
