Production has started from the Mars B development through Olympus — Shell’s seventh, and largest, floating deep-water platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Mars B is the first deep-water project in the Gulf to expand an existing oil and gas field with significant new infrastructure, which should extend the life of the greater Mars basin to 2050 or beyond. Combined future production from Olympus and Shell’s original Mars platform is expected to deliver an estimated resource base of 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
In addition to the Olympus drilling and production platform, the Shell Mars B development includes subsea wells at the West Boreas and South Deimos fields, export pipelines, and a shallow-water platform, located at West Delta 143, near the Louisiana coast. Olympus sits in approximately 3,100 feet (945 metres) of water. Using the Olympus platform drilling rig and an additional floating drill rig, development drilling will enable ramp up to an estimated peak of 100,000 boe per day in 2016.
