Moho Nord offshore oil project is located 75km off the coast of the Republic of the Congo. The project consists of two developments- the Moho Phase 1bis and Moho Nord, which commenced operations in December 2015 and March 2017 respectively.

Moho Phase 1bis and Moho Nord together produce 140,000 barrels of oil per day.

TotalEnergies subsidiary Total E&P Congo is the operator of the field with 53.5% interest. Chevron (31.5%) and state-owned oil company Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo (SNPC) (15%) are the other stakeholders.

Site details and Reserves

The Moho Nord project is located in the Moho-Bilondo licence block, around 75km offshore from Pointe-Noire city in the Republic of the Congo and 25km west of N’Kossa field.

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The block encompasses an area of more than 320km2 and hosts four reservoirs at water depths between 750m and 1,200 m.

Oil production from two reservoirs began in 2008 by deploying the Alima floating production unit (FPU).

The Moho Nord project involved the field’s second development stage entailing an investment of around $10bn.

The project targets additional reserves located in the southern part of the licence (Phase 1bis) and new reserves hosted in the northern part (Moho Nord).

Overall, additional reserves total around 485 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Exploration at Moho Nord

The exploration wells Moho Nord Marine 1 and 2 were drilled in 2007.

TotalEnergies announced successful discoveries from the Bilondo Marine 2 and 3 wells (BILDM-2 and BILDM-3) in January 2011. The wells were drilled in a water depth of 800m in the central area of the Moho-Bilondo licence.

BILDM-2 and BILDM-3 reached a total depth of around 1,800m in the Tertiary series and encountered a gross reservoir of 77m and 44m respectively.

In March 2013, TotalEnergies announced the final investment decision (FID) on the Moho Nord project.

Moho Nord Project details

The Moho Phase 1bis development involved upgrading the Alima FPU which was connected to nine new subsea wells.  The project increased production capacity by additional 40,000 barrels of oil per day.

Moho Nord subsea development, which became onstream in 2017, targeted two remaining reservoirs hosting distinct types of oils at different water depths. A total of 34 wells are tied back to the new all-electric FPU Likouf and a new Tension Leg Platform (TLP).

The TLP produces oil from the Albian reservoir at water depth of 3,000m, while Likouf is involved in extracting oil from Miocene reservoir located closer to the seabed.

Likouf FPU is also capable of processing the two different types of oil from the two reservoirs.

The 62,000-tonne FPU measures 250m in length, 44m in width, and 18m in depth. It is capable of producing 100,000 barrels of oil and 2.5 million cubic metres of natural gas per day.

After processing, the oil is transported to the Djeno onshore terminal.

Contractors Involved

In March 2013, Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI)secured two orders, valued at $1.3bn and $700m, to deliver the FPU and the TLP for the Moho Nord project, respectively.

Ponticelli Frères was associated with construction and installation works on the Alima FPU.

In April 2013, Technip was awarded an engineering, procurement, supply, construction, installation (EPSCI), and pre-commissioning contract, valued more than €500m, for the Moho Nord development project. The works included delivery of 230km of rigid pipelines, 23km of flexible pipes, 50km of umbilicals, 50 subsea structures as well as various other structures.

In February 2014, ShawCor’s Socotherm pipe coating division received a contract to provide pipeline coatings for the Moho Nord Oil Pipeline project.

Hamall Process Instruments supplied instrumentation for the new FPSO including Magnetic Flow Meters, Level Gauges, Radar Level Transmitter, Orifice Flow Meter, Pressure Transmitter, Temperature Transmitters, Turbidity Analysers, and Sunshades.

In January 2015, Resinex supplied Technip 152 floats to optimise the beach pool operations of the export flowline in the field.

In July 2015, GMC and Protea completed FAT testing on the tooling system which includes Make-Break Tool, Hydraulic Power Unit (HPU), Tendon Handling Tool, and Spider Tool for the project.

Ocean Installer has been awarded a contract to install deep water umbilicals, flowlines and risers in September 2015.

Dockwise, a subsidiary of Boskalis, was contracted to transport the FPU Likouf from Ulsan, South Korea, to the offshore location near Port-Gentil, Gabon.

2H Offshore announced that it has completed the installation of the first of 17 production top tension risers (TTRs) for the Moho Nord field in April 2017.

Principia won a contract in June 2017 to offer installation engineering of three families of rigid jumpers to be installed by BOURBON in the Moho Nord field.

Energop offered prefabrication of piping and support regarding the Moho Nord development.

In May 2023, Aker Solutions secured a contract, valued between NOK500m ($44.65m) and NOK1.5bn, to deliver standard and configurable Subsea Production Systems for three additional infill wells tied back to the Moho Nord field.