By OGJ Editors
HOUSTON, Apr. 1 -- BP PLC has awarded Aker Kværner an $11 million contract to supply advanced drilling and mooring equipment for one of the largest oil fields—in almost 2,000 m of water—in the Gulf of Mexico.
The equipment is for a semisubmersible platform that BP is having built for installation in Thunder Horse oil field in the Mississippi Canyon area. Together with three nearby oil and gas fields, Thunder Horse—formerly known as Crazy Horse (OGJ, Feb. 25, 2002, p. 8)—is part of a pioneering project for oil and gas production in ultradeep gulf waters. The equipment has been developed and will be delivered by Maritime Hydraulics and Maritime Pusnes in first quarter 2003.
Goldeneye
Meanwhile, Royal Dutch/Shell unit UK Exploration & Production let a contract valued at more than £10 million to Aker Kværner subsidiary Aker Verdal AS for engineering, procurement, and construction of a jacket and piles for the Goldeneye platform to be located on the UK Continental Shelf in June 2003.
Shell UK Ltd. announced the go-ahead in March for the $300 million Goldeneye gas-condensate project in the outer Moray Firth area, 100 km northeast of St. Fergus, Scotland. Facilities for the project include the offshore, unmanned, minimum-facilities platform, a 105-km pipeline tying back the platform to St. Fergus onshore, and a new processing module at St. Fergus.
The field contains 500 bscf of gas reserves and 17 million bbl of condensate. Gas will be delivered to the National Transmission System at Transco in St. Fergus, while NGLs and condensate will go to the Fife NGL fractionation plant in Mossmorran through an existing pipeline. Other Goldeneye partners are units of ExxonMobil Corp., ENI SPA, and Paladin Expro Ltd.
Aker Kværner's work will be undertaken at the Aker Verdal yard in Norway. Aker Kværner Technology will start design engineering immediately, while fabrication will begin in October. At its base, the jacket will measure 35 m square; it will have a height of 140 m and a total weight of 3,000 tonnes.
In addition, Verdal has three other jackets currently under construction— Kvitebjørn for Statoil, Valhall for BP, and Grane for Norsk Hydro AS.
New company
Aker Kværner is the company formed from the merger of Aker Maritime with its long-time competitor Kværner AS in late 2001. Prior to the merger, Aker had tried to acquire Kværner several times, only to be rebuffed.
The merger ultimately evolved as a rescue of Kværner by Aker, following anattempt by Russia's OAO Yukos to acquire Kværner (OGJ, Dec. 10, 2001, p. 36).
