Hanoi (VNA) – The Vietnam-Russia oil and gas joint venture Vietsovpetro announced that it has successfully transferred the topside of the BK-23 oil rig to a barge for transportation to the Bach Ho (White Tiger) field for installation.
The BK-23 rig, located at the Bach Ho field on Vietnam’s continental shelf, about 145km southeast of Vung Tau ciy, is an unmanned platform designed by Vietsovpetro's Science Research and Engineering Institute.
Erected next to the existing BK-14 platform, it features supporting equipment, a bridge, and pipeline connecting with BK-14, whose equipment have also been converted to receive oil and gas from BK-23.
The topside of BK-23 weighs about 760 tonnes while the base of this rig is about 850 tonnes, supporting pillars 890 tonnes, and the bridge 40 tonnes.
Equipment of BK-23 was put on trial run onshore by the Enterprise of Oil and Gas Construction, Survey and Repair Exploitation of Vietsovpetro, which already completed installing the base of this rig at sea in August 2024.
Dang Duc Phong, the enterprise’s director, said that the success of the onshore construction of the topside is a testament to continuous efforts, especially the sense of responsibility and creativity, by all workers. It will continue fulfilling the duty of installing, connecting, and handing over the platform at sea to put it into operation on schedule.
The rig is expected to extract the first oil flow on October 20./.
