Norway's offshore construction industry prospects have improved from ragged to riches, following a spate of new field projects over the past nine months. Statoil is the latest benefactor, awarding contracts worth over NKr4 billion for the Gullfaks satellites and Asgard developments.
The three Gullfaks Field satellites are Gullfaks South, Rimfaks and Delta, thought to contain 260MM bbl of oil and over 65bcm of gas. Although the gas cannot be produced now without a sales contract, the oil will be accessed via seven subsea templates and 23 development wells, some of which will be drilled by Transocean.
Kongsberg/FMC's hingeover subsea (HOST) template is the chosen concept, allowing up to four wells per template, although at this stage Delta will require only one producer well. Well costs are estimated at NKr24 million each, way below the NKr40 million target imposed not long ago by Statoil on its subsea suppliers. Successful standardisation of equipment is a factor in this reduction.
All three satellites will be tied back to the concrete Gullfaks A platform. The first batch of oil should be produced late in 1998, peaking at 125,000b/d as output from the main Gullfaks Field coincidentally declines. Associated gas from the satellites will be reinjected into the reservoirs for the time being.
Main beneficiary of this project is Stavanger-based Kvaerner Installasjon, which won the NKr1.2 billion turnkey contract - its largest to date - to manage the tiebacks and modifications. These include supplying a new 2,000 tonne compression module to Gullfaks A, as well as a pig receiver module and piperack module. These will be fabricated by Kvaerner Egersund, with back-up from Kvaerner Engineering.
Asgard alliance
Most of the hardware for the proposed Asgard oil production vessel has been awarded to a consortium of Aker, ABB and Maritime Tentech. The latter is charged with delivering the hull, to be built by Hitachi in Japan, under a NKr1.52 billion order.
Aker Engineering will handle topsides engineering and procurement, with Aker Stord responsible for assembly and hook-up of the vessel. The tripartite consortium also has options worth NKr450 million for further fabrication and installation work on Asgard.
This is expected to be the world's largest oil production vessel (potentially 200,000b/d) with storage capacity of 150,000cu metres of oil, and gas processing capability of 15-16mcm/d. The consortium are working towards first oil in August 1998. Statoil's choice of a semisub FPS for the field's main gas centre has yet to gain government approval, but in readiness, Statoil has already awarded Aker Engineering the gas production system design contract.
Other Norwegian award winners are Aker Elektro, supplying electrical systems for the two production centres, and Simrad, providing control, safety, positioning and ship automation systems. Fluenta is one of three candidates for the subsea metering systems for both Asgard and Gullfaks.
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