Williams said it has started receiving gas and oil production at its Devil’s Tower deepwater spar in the eastern Gulf of Mexico from the Triton and Goldfinger fields, 140 miles southeast of New Orleans on Mississippi Canyon Blocks 771, 772 and 728.

The new fields were connected via a six-mile tieback prior to the hurricanes but were only recently brought online due to repairs to downstream infrastructure, according to Dominion, which has a 75% stake in the production facilities and operates the spar. Pioneer Natural Resources owns the remaining 25% stake in the production facilities, which also include the Devil’s Tower Devil’s Tower field that began production in May 2004.

Located in 5,610 of water, the spar is the world’s deepest dry-tree spar and is capable of producing 60,000 bbl/d of oil and 60 MMcf/d of gas. Production from the Devils Tower facilities was shut in for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and resumed at pre-hurricane levels in early November. Daily production from the facilities has since doubled and currently is averaging 40,000 boe/d, Pioneer said. By the end of December, production is expected to reach 50,000 boe/d as production is optimized via multi-zone completions in the Triton wells.

“We extend our compliments to Dominion and Pioneer on their ability to bring on this incremental production in the face of the post-hurricane work environment,” said Alan Armstrong, senior vice president of Williams’ midstream business. “The new volumes from the Triton and Goldfinger development are important to the success of the overall Devils Tower project.”

From the spar, oil and gas are fed into export pipelines owned and operated by Williams. Oil is delivered onshore to a third-party terminal near Venice, LA. Natural gas is delivered onshore to Williams’ Mobile Bay plant for processing.

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