Installation underway on Cantarell module

Spain's Dragados Offshore started installation this week of the EPC-78B oil production and compression module after delivering it to Mexico's Cantarell field over the weekend, company spokesperson Lorenzo Cooklin Diaz told BNamericas. Dragados Offshore built the module, and is also responsible for its installation and mid-2004 start-up as part of its 200mn euro (US$230mn) contract with state oil company Pemex, which will use the module in its Akal-L processing installation. EPC-78B will have the capacity to produce 500,000 barrels a day of oil and compress 520 million cubic feet a day of natural gas, according to Dragados. The project falls under Dragados Offshore's strategy to expand operations in Mexico, the company announced, adding that it aims to participate in bidding for some of the 45 new platforms Pemex plans to contract out in coming years. "Dragados Offshore hopes to repeat the formula applied in the construction of the EPC-78B platform, the third part of which has been built in Mexico and the other two parts in Cadiz, Spain," the company said in a statement last week