The Kebabangan gas field is located in the South China Sea, 130km offshore Sabah, East Malaysia. It is part of the Kebabangan Cluster, which contains two more fields Kamunsu East and Kamunsu East Upthrown Canyon. The water depth at the cluster ranges from 100m to 400m.
The cluster is owned by Petronas Carigali (40%), ConocoPhillips (30%) and Shell (30%). The three co-owners signed the development and production sharing contract for the cluster in 2007. A joint-venture called Kebabangan Petroleum Operating Company (KPOC) was set up to act as the cluster operator.
A project named The Kebabangan Northern Hub Project was undertaken to develop the three fields in the cluster. The project began with the development of the Kebabangan field and is currently in the detailed design phase. Production is scheduled to begin in 2014.
The Kebabangan field is estimated to contain approximately two trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. The field will be tied back to an integrated platform that will be designed to serve the entire cluster. The development will involve drilling of 12 subsea production wells and construction of a drilling cum production platform. The drilling will be carried out in two phases. The Kebabangan platform will be a floating platform with the capacity to handle 825 million cubic feet of gas (mcf) and 22,000 barrels of condensate per day. It will be installed in a water depth of 142m (466ft). The topsides will be installed onto a fixed eight-leg steel jacket in place weighing 12,300t. The deck will weigh 17,000t and feature a Tender Assisted Drilling (TAD) rig, utilities and living quarters for people working onboard.
The Malaikai deep water field operated by Shell is planned to be tied to the platform once the Kebabangan field enters production stage. The platform is being designed with surplus capacity so that third party fields can also be tied in future. The Kebabangan field will produce 130 to 140 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MBOED) at peak.
The produced gas will reach the platform, from where it will be transferred by a pipeline to the Sabah Oil and Gas terminal being built by Petronas at Kimanis. The terminal is located approximately 135km away from the field. A subsea pipeline of 24in diameter and 135km length is proposed to be laid to carry the gas from the platform to the terminal at Sabah. Another pipeline of 14in diameter will be laid to carry the oil produced at the platform.
The produced gas will first reach the SOGT from where it will be sent to the Petronas LNG complex at Bintulu through a 500km pipeline for processing. The front end engineering and design (FEED) contract of the project was awarded to Aker Solutions. The four-year contract is valued at Nkr170m (approximately $30m).
