Shell’s Mars platform has become the first offshore asset in the US Gulf of Mexico (sometimes referred to as the Gulf of America) to produce 1 billion bbl over its lifetime and the first single platform in the Gulf to reach that milestone, according to the company. Shell said reaching this milestone took 30 years. The company described Mars as foundational to its US Gulf portfolio and a key contributor to its US offshore supply.
Mars is a deepwater tension-leg platform (TLP) located at a 3,000-ft water depth, about 130 miles southeast of New Orleans, in the Mississippi Canyon blocks. It began producing first oil in July 1996 and was originally expected to recover about 500 million BOE over its lifetime.
Its importance lies in the fact that it anchors the Mars group (Mars, Olympus (also known as Mars B), and the wider Mars Corridor), which feeds production to US infrastructure via pipeline to Louisiana hubs (Clovelly and West Delta 143).
“Thirty years ago, people said this project couldn’t be done,” Colette Hirstius, president of Shell USA Inc. and executive vice president for Gulf of America, said in a 20 May news release by Louisiana Economic Development (LED) to mark the Mars production milestone and first-oil anniversary.
“Thousands of employees from the Gulf Coast proved them wrong,” she added.
More Than Just an Offshore Platform
The Mars Corridor is one of Shell’s key deepwater production areas in the Gulf, which includes 10 operated hubs. An eleventh, Sparta, is under construction and expected to begin operations in 2028.
Shell is currently the largest producing leaseholder in the basin, employing over 6,000 people in Louisiana. It is also constructing a new deepwater headquarters in the River District development in New Orleans, LED noted in its release.
“The story of Mars shows us why Louisiana is the location of choice for the energy industry,” LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois said. “An investment here drives innovation and momentum to advance US energy dominance and security.”
Commenting in the LED release, Dustin Davidson, Louisiana Department of Conservation and Energy Secretary, said, “The people, ports, and coastal ecosystems of south Louisiana remain the backbone of offshore oil and gas exploration and production in the Gulf of America … having generated hundreds of billions of dollars for the federal government through royalties, rents, and bonus bids.”