Murphy - King’s Quay Commissioning
GATE Energy was responsible for pre-commissioning, commissioning, regulatory testing and vendor management for all Topsides systems of the King’s Quay FPU, both in South Korea and the United States / Gulf of Mexico. Viking, the engineering arm of GATE Energy, was contracted to assist with the development of the topsides standard operating procedures (SOPs).
Commissioning execution in South Korea came at a challenging time when borders were largely closed due to the ongoing pandemic. To provide execution certainty, GATE Energy leveraged the highly skilled South Korean labor market and selected local personnel to fill key leadership positions within the commissioning team. The Topsides Commissioning Team under direct management of GATE peaked at 110 personnel, excluding vendors. King’s Quay departed from HHI at 97% commissioning complete with very few outstanding punch items – a major milestone accomplishment for everyone involved.
“Our King’s Quay team achieved an unparalleled level of commissioning completion at the shipyard,” explained Mark Myhre, President of GATE Energy Commissioning. “This level of success paved a fast path to first oil. The industry has taken notice of King’s Quay’s accomplishments and the feedback we’ve heard from other clients is that King’s Quay is the gold star project. This project has set the bar to which all other projects should strive to meet.”
Upon facility arrival in the United States, GATE de-preserved, re-energized, and performed final commissioning efforts resulting in proven systems being handed over to Murphy Operations team.
The thorough efforts of the entire commissioning and engineering teams have contributed to high facility uptime and steady state production. The cooperation between Murphy, GATE Energy, Viking and all others involved on King’s Quay has demonstrated that projects can be delivered within budget and on schedule without sacrificing quality or safety.
The successful commissioning and startup of King’s Quay further exemplifies the ability and expertise of GATE’s commissioning personnel to safely execute large scale projects worldwide. Leveraging the expertise of GATE Energy across the domestic and international offices will position GATE to continue to provide our clients around the world with professional project delivery.
The Murphy King’s Quay facility was a greenfield project developed as semi-submersible floating production system with a capacity of 80,000 BOPD and 100 MMSCFD located at Green Canyon 433 in 3,700 ft of water.
