On 31st August 2010, LLOG Exploration of Covington, Louisiana signed a contract for the purchase of EXMAR’s first OPTI-EX™ Floating Production System (FPS). The contract specified for EXMAR to perform engineering services to prepare the unit for deployment at the Who Dat! field in Mississippi Canyon 547 field at a depth of 3,200 feet in the Gulf of Mexico in mid 2011. By July 2011, EXMAR Offshore Company successfully delivered the OPTI-EX™ FPS to a location one mile from the production site in the Who Dat! field. OPTI-EX™ was a significant milestone for a number of reasons. It became the first privately-owned FPS in the world, and the first FPS installed in the Gulf of Mexico since the Macondo incident. Also the OPTI-EX™ was first semi-submersible specifically designed for the Gulf of Mexico and it was the first time that the United States Coast Guard approved an existing FPS for installation.
