CMA to inaugurate Carina and Aries platforms

The Cuenca Marina Austral-1 (CMA) consortium led by French oil company Total will officially inaugurate its Carina and Aries offshore production platforms in Argentina's Tierra de Fuego province on June 25, a spokesperson for CMA partner Pan American Energy told.
Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner will travel to Tierra del Fuego on June 24 to oversee the inauguration, the spokesperson said. Gas production from the platforms have begun, the spokesperson said. The platforms will initially produce about 4 mm cm of gas a day.

Total investment in the Carina-Aries project is over $ 400 mm. Total operates the CMA consortium through its Total Austral subsidiary (37.5%). Germany's Wintershall owns a 37.5% stake in the consortium and Anglo-Argentine Pan American Energy 25%.
Gas production from Carina and Aries will be used gradually to substitute declining production on existing fields in Tierra del Fuego and supply more gas to the Argentine market. Some of the gas could also be sent to Canadian methanol producer Methanex's fourth train at its Cabo Negro plant near Punta Arenas in Chile, the spokesperson said.

US-based McDermott International, which was awarded the contract in October 2001, built the two offshore natural gas production platforms on the Carina and Aires blocks and a pipeline linking them with the coast. The two platforms, at respective water depths of 60 metres and 80 metres, are connected to the coast through a multiphase (liquid and gas) undersea pipeline system.
The 80 km main pipeline links Carina to the Rio Cullen plant, where most of the gas separated from the liquids will be sent to the Canadon Alfa plant for treatment before being sent to the Argentine market.

The project has been delayed because of lack of transport capacity on the 296 km, 30-inch diameter San Martin pipeline linking Tierra del Fuego to central Argentina, but that pipeline is now being expanded to allow the transport of gas from CMA, the spokesperson said.
Argentine gas transporter TGS has hired local construction company Techint to carry out the $ 232 mm expansion of the San Martin line, which will add 2.9 mm cmpd capacity on completion.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES will provide a $ 142 mm loan for the project.
TGS is controlled by Brazil's federal energy company Petrobras.