MURPHY Oil has started production from Malaysia’s first deepwater oil field, writes Martyn Wingrove.The US independent has put itself on the map for innovative deepwater projects, with a development involving a spar platform and a floating production storage and offloading vessel.Murphy has more work to do on Kikeh, which lies in 1,300 m of water off the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah, to increase production toplateau levels.Initial oil production from the field is around 20,000 barrels per day, but this will rise as more of the pre-drilled wells are connected.A truss spar floating production platform — supplied, installed and commissioned by Technip — hosts the field’s dry tree completed wells. Close to this is a SBM-leased FPSO that takes oil from a network of subsea wells.“The first oil production from Kikeh comes just five years after its discovery. Pre-drilled wells in the field will continue to be placed onstream during the remainder of 2007,”