His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam paid a visit to the Champion 7 complex centrally located at Champion offshore field yesterday morning during the monarch's working visit to commemorate BSP's 80th anniversary celebration.

The Champion 7 complex is by far the largest offshore oil and gas producing asset in Brunei and is the central facility in the 92 offshore structures with over 350 wells and 500 km of pipelines in operation.

The offshore complex located in 30 metres of water also houses living quarters for 160 staff and is the gathering station for all the oil and gas from the Champion field and a series of other smaller fields like Bugan, Puragam and IronDuke.

At the Champion 7 field complex, His Majesty toured the living quarters and was given a safety briefing and quick introduction of the facilities available at the complex.

Later, the ruler closely observed the operations of the facility development by touring the control room, bridge platform and further was briefed on Champion's future projects by the BSP's East Asset Manager Mr Gerbert Schoonman.

On a daily basis, the facilities are processing an average of 90,000 bbl/d of oil for export to the Seria Oil Terminal and 13-mln m3 of gas, which is used for Inland Power Generation and liquefication in BLNG.

The Champion 7 complex has been in operation for 30 years and many of the platforms are already beyond their original design life. Therefore, Champion is currently going through a major maintenance, integrity restoration and rejuvenation programme.

Later, His Majesty proceeded to meet and greet with crews and contractors based at the offshore field, marking the end of the ruler's working visit yesterday.

The 80th anniversary celebration of the oil and gas development is a result of a concerted partnership between BSP, the Government of His Majesty, Royal Dutch/Shell and the support from the people of Brunei.

To commemorate the celebration, the company also held a mass prayer and recital of surah yassin and doa kesyukuran on September 28 at the BSP Head Office's Surau. The event was attended by BSP staff and led by Haji Zainal Abidin bin Haji Mohd Ali, Deputy Managing Director of BSP. - Borneo Bulletin (1st October 2009)