Bullwinkle is a 1,736 feet tall, pile-supported fixed steel oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Of the total height, 1,352 feet are below the waterline.
It is located in Green Canyon Block 65, approximately 160 miles southwest of New Orleans. Bullwinkle belongs to Fieldwood Energy LLC.
The total field development construction cost was US $500,000,000 according to some sources.
The jacket, i.e. the mainly submerged part of the platform, was built by Gulf Marine Fabricators in 1985-1988 at the North Yard location at the intersection of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel and the Intracoastal Waterway in Port Aransas, TX, east of Corpus Christi.
The platform was installed by Heerema Marine Contractors.
The Manatee Field is developed as a subsea production system located in 1,940ft of water. It has been designated as a two-well development. These wells are tied back five miles to Shell’s Angus subsea manifold in Green Canyon 113.
This in turn carries production 17 miles to Shell’s Bullwinkle platform in Green Canyon 65 for processing.
The subsea controls extend from Bullwinkle through the Angus umbilical termination structure and the five mile umbilical from the Angus hydraulic distribution manifold.
Manatee is the fourth subsea production system using Bullwinkle as its processing hub. Previous field tiebacks to Bullwinkle include Rocky in 1996, Troika in 1997 and Angus in 1999.
BULLWINKLE PLATFORM
The Bullwinkle platform consists of topsides sitting on a one-piece jacket, which was designed and engineered by Shell Oil Company. It is the world’s tallest pile-supported, fixed steel platform.
Gulf Marine Fabricators was awarded the contract for fabrication, transportation and installation of the jacket.
Heerema Marine Contractors was selected by Gulf Marine Fabricators for the transportation and installation of the jacket.
Petro-Marine Engineering designed the original production modules.
Total height of the structure is 1,736ft, from the sea bottom to the top of the flare boom. The platform has 60 well slots.
Total structural weight is over 77,000 tons.
The jacket weighs 49,375t, the deck initially weighed 2,033t, the piles weigh 10,500t and the conductors weigh 12,760t. Initial processing capacity at the platform was 59,000 barrels of oil per day and 100 million cubic feet of gas per day.
McDermott installed a 7.5 mile oil pipeline connecting the Bullwinkle platform to the Boxer platform in Green Canyon 19 where initial production from the Bullwinkle field was processed. After the facilities were set, the platform produced oil into a 12in line that connected to the Boxer system and the gas flowed into a separate 12in line that tied into what is now the Manta Ray system.
