By the OGJ Online Staff
LONDON, June 28 -- Statoil AS has awarded Kværner Oil & Gas AS a 350-million kroner ($37.9 million) contract to upgrade its Sleipner West installations, after the Norwegian North Sea development's licensees approved a 1-billion kroner project to boost compression capacity.
Work associated with the contract, which includes an option for a further contract to connect the field's Alpha Nord reservoir to the Sleipner T-platform, is intended to combat declining reservoir pressure at Sleipner.
Statoil opted to upgrade existing field installations rather than build a separate compression platform.
The modification will be done at Kværner's Stavanger yard by the end of 2004.
"The need for more compression capacity and possible production from Alpha North were outlined in the original plan for development and operation," said Statoil's Aoued Kaddour, head of the compression project.
Kværner, which also handled conceptual studies and preproject work for the Sleipner expansion program, was involved with the original development of Sleipner West in the early 1990s via the engineering, fabrication, and installation of an 11,000-tonne process module for the Sleipner T platform.
Otto Søberg, president of the Anglo-Norwegian contractor's field development division, said the contract was "very important" to Kværner as the market for large-scale modifications of existing installations grows on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
Sleipner West field, which began gas and condensate production in 1996, consists of the Sleipner B and T platforms linked to Sleipner A.
Statoil said it would not submit a new development plan for Sleipner West, since the Ministry of Petroleum & Energy has just approved an application to change to the original plan.
Partners in Sleipner West are Statoil with 49.5%, ExxonMobil Corp. 32.24%, Norsk Hydro AS 9.41%, and TotalFinaElf SA 8.85%.
