Gruppo Antonini launches the Maboqueiro Off-Shore platform
On Friday November 22, at a ceremony attended by La Spezia’s Councillor for Employment and Economic Development Patrizia Saccone, Lerici’s Deputy Mayor Marco Russo and other notable public figures in the academic community of the Università di Genova, at its La Spezia production facility, Gruppo Antonini, an oil & gas industry operator for over 80 years, launched the Maboqueiro Off-Shore platform, the largest and heaviest ever manufactured by the Group.
Built for gas extraction in the Maboqueiro field in Angola, the massive structure is an extraordinary achievement for the Group and the first EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) project completed for Azule Energy, a leading player in the country’s oil & gas industry, part-owned by ENI. The complexity of the project resulted in a tender process lasting about 24 months, given the size of the constructions and the numerous interfaces.
The Maboqueiro EPC Project forms part of the Angola NGC (New Gas Consortium) Project to extract gas condensate from two fields called Quiluma and Maboqueiro. These fields have multiple strata containing gas and condensate, with a development plan to build two platforms, a new onshore gas reception and treatment plant, and pipelines to transport the extracted materials. Production is planned to start in 2026, with an estimated capacity of 330 million cubic feet of gas a day, or about 4 billion cubic metres a year.
The Maboqueiro platform built by Gruppo Antonini consists of a jacket, the equivalent of an oceanic structure made of steel tubular components and anchored to the seabed with four 88-metre-long piles, plus a three-story deck on top measuring 25×30 metres, with a total weight of 2,600 tonnes, the heaviest ever built by the Group. The platform has six well slots (4 in service + 2 backup) and, when operational, the gas pressure will reach 60 bars.
One of the special features of the project is the new jacket lifting method, the first time it has been used by the Group. A specially designed system made it possible to erect the jacket components in a reduced space, overcoming a major logistical challenge.
In addition, for this project all quality reports were fully digitalised and managed by a software package called CCMS, which handles various operations including maintenance.
Simone Antonini, Group CEO, commented: “With the Maboqueiro project we have achieved a milestone that testifies to the company’s ability to handle complex global challenges. This platform not only represents a record in terms of size and technological innovation, but is also a concrete example of our ability to integrate engineering expertise with a sustainable and efficient approach.”
In 2019, Antonini Group founded Antonini Navi (La Spezia) in partnership with Aldo Manna. Drawing on the Group’s long experience and technological expertise, the yard operates in the yachting sector and specialises in building full-custom yachts and naval and military units. Antonini Navi currently has three steel yachts over 30m in length under construction. Two of these are full-custom projects scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2025, while the third unit under construction (on spec) is the SUY 135, planned for delivery in 2026.
