Supermajor Chevron Corp., Houston, announced on Monday that it has produced first oil and natural gas from its Ballymore subsea tieback in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
The $1.6 billion Ballymore project is located in the Mississippi Canyon area in around 6,600' of water, about 160 miles southeast of New Orleans. It includes three wells tied back three miles via one flowline to the existing Chevron-operated Blind Faith floating production unit.
The development is expected to produce up to 75,000 gross barrels of oil and and 50 million cubic feet of gas per day. Estimated potentially recoverable resources at Ballymore are 150 million barrels of oil equivalent gross over the life of the project.
“Ballymore is an example of how we are leveraging technology and driving efficiencies to help produce affordable, reliable energy from the deepwater Gulf of America, one of the lowest carbon intensity oil and gas producing basins in the world,” said Brent Gros, vice president, Chevron Gulf of America, who noted the project was completed on time and on budget.
Chevron subsidiary Chevron U.S.A. Inc. is operator of the Ballymore project with 60% working interest. Co-owner TotalEnergies E&P USA, Inc. has 40% working interest.
Nicolas Terraz, president, exploration and production at TotalEnergies, said, The start-up of Ballymore will increase TotalEnergies’ production capacity in U.S. deepwater to more than 75,000 boe/d and contribute to the company’s targeted hydrocarbon production growth of over 3% in 2025.”
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For Chevron, a leading leaseholder in the Gulf of Mexico — also referred to as the Gulf of America — the Ballymore development is the latest in a series of projects to start up in the past year. Since midyear 2024, Chevron has started production from its Anchor project and non-operated Whale project and commenced water injection to boost output at its operated Tahiti and Jack/St. Malo facilities.
Chevron said it aims to produce 300,000 net barrels per day of oil equivalent from the U.S. Gulf in 2026.
