Shell has begun production from the Mars B development through Olympus, its largest floating deep-water platform in the Gulf of Mexico (United States). It is the first deep-water project in the Gulf to expand an existing oil and gas field with significant new infrastructure, which should extend the life of the greater Mars basin to 2050 or beyond. Combined future production from Olympus and the original Mars platform is expected to deliver an estimated resource base of 1 Gboe. In addition to the Olympus drilling and production platform, the Shell Mars B development (Shell 71.5% operator, BP 28.5%) includes subsea wells at the West Boreas and South Deimos fields, export pipelines, and a shallow-water platform, located at West Delta 143, near the Louisiana coast. Using the Olympus platform drilling rig and a floating drill rig, additional development drilling will enable ramp up to an estimated peak of 100,000 boe/d in 2016. The Mars field produced an average of over 60,000 boe/d in 2013.
Also in the Gulf of Mexico, progress on the 50,000 boe/d Cardamom project (Shell 100%) continues toward a 2014 production date, and work is underway on the 50,000 boe/d, deep-water Stones development (Shell 100%) following the final investment decision last May.