Production has started at the Shell-operated Vito floating production facility in the US Gulf of Mexico (GoM). With an estimated peak production of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Vito is the company’s first deep-water platform in the GoM to employ a simplified, cost-efficient host design.

The Vito development is owned by Shell Offshore Inc. (63.11% operator) and Equinor (36.89%). In 2015, the original host design was rescoped and simplified, resulting in a reduction of approximately 80 per cent in CO2 emissions over the lifetime of the facility as well as a cost reduction of more than 70 per cent from the original host concept.

Vito also serves as the design standard for Shell’s Whale project that will feature a 99 per cent replication of the Vito hull and 80 per cent of Vito’s topsides.

Originally discovered in 2009, the Vito field spans four Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) blocks in the Mississippi Canyon and is located at a depth of more than 1,220 metres of water. The host is located approximately 241 kilometres southeast of New Orleans and 16 kilometres south of the Shell-operated Mars TLP.

Shell announced a final investment decision (FID) on the Vito project in April 2018 and is Shell’s 13th deep-water host in the Gulf of Mexico.

Vito is a four-column semi-submersible host facility with eight subsea wells (9,400 metres) with deep (5,500 metres) in-well, gas lift, and associated subsea flowlines and equipment.

Vito will produce into Shell Midstream’s Mars Pipeline system.

Current estimated recoverable resource volume of the primary Vito development is 290 million boe. The estimate of resources volumes is currently classified as 2p and 2c under the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Resource Classification System.

Shell reached an FID on Whale in 2021 and is currently scheduled to begin production in 2024.