壳牌在 2 月 16 日的新闻稿中宣布，维托浮式生产设施的生产已正式开始。

“像 Vito 这样的项目使我们能够从墨西哥湾产生更大的价值，我们的生产是世界上石油生产中温室气体强度最低的国家之一，”壳牌上游总监 Zoe Yujnovich 在一份新闻稿中表示。

维托油田横跨密西西比峡谷的四个外大陆架区块。它位于新奥尔良东南 150 英里处，水深超过 4,000 英尺。距壳牌的 Mars TLP 工厂也有 10 英里，该公司将在该工厂进行生产。

Vito 是一座四柱半潜式主机设施，拥有 8 口海底井，深度为 31,000 英尺。它还包括深井、气举以及相关的海底出油管线和设备，深度为 18,000 英尺。它是壳牌公司的海湾地区第一个采用经济高效主机设计的深水平台。尽管如此，Vito 的峰值产量预计仍为 100,000 桶油当量/天，预计可采资源量为 290 MMboe。

该油田最初于 2009 年发现，由壳牌和 Equinor 共同拥有，其中壳牌是作业者，持股 63.11%，Equinor 持股 36.89%。2015 年，对原始设计进行了重新调整和更改，使设施整个生命周期内的碳排放量减少了 80%。与最初的概念相比，这种简化还带来了超过 70% 的成本降低。壳牌于 2018 年 4 月宣布了该项目的最终投资决定。

“美国墨西哥湾提供了 Equinor 一些价值最高的石油，帮助我们满足社会的关键能源需求，同时保持我们对减少排放的关注，”Equinor 美国国家经理 Chris Golden 表示。

Production at the Vito floating production facility is officially underway, Shell announced in a press release on February 16.

“Projects like Vito enable us to generate greater value from the GoM, where our production has amongst the lowest greenhouse gas intensity in the world for producing oil,” Shell’s upstream director Zoe Yujnovich said in a press release.

The Vito field spans four Outer Continental Shelf blocks in the Mississippi Canyon. It is located 150 miles southeast of New Orleans at a water depth of more than 4,000 ft. It is also 10 miles away from Shell’s Mars TLP, which it will produce into.

Vito is a four-column semi-submersible host facility with eight subsea wells at a depth of 31,000 ft. It also includes deep in-well, gas lift and associated subsea flowlines and equipment at a depth of 18,000 ft. It is Shell’s first deepwater platform in the Gulf to use a cost-efficient host design. Despite this, Vito’s peak production is still estimated to be 100,000 boe/d with an estimated recoverable resource volume of 290 MMboe.

Originally discovered in 2009, the field is owned by both Shell and Equinor, with Shell being the operator at 63.11% and Equinor having 36.89%. In 2015, the original design was rescoped and changed, resulting in an 80% reduction in carbon emissions over the lifetime of the facility. The simplification also brought about a cost reduction of more than 70% from the original concept. Shell announced final investment decision on the project in April 2018.

“The US Gulf of Mexico delivers some of Equinor’s highest-value barrels, helping us meet society’s critical energy needs while maintaining our focus on reducing emissions,” said Chris Golden, Equinor’s U.S. country manager.