Oilexco lets UK North Sea subsea work to Technip

May 17, 2008
Oilexco North Sea Ltd. has signed a framework agreement with Technip SA for engineering, project management, and construction services for subsea developments at its Shelley oil field and other fields in the UK North Sea.

Uchenna Izundu
International Editor

LONDON, May 17 -- Oilexco North Sea Ltd. has signed a framework agreement with Technip SA for engineering, project management, and construction services for subsea developments at its Shelley oil field and other fields in the UK North Sea.

Using the Ocean Guardian, Oilexco has drilled 22 well bores in Shelley field in the central North Sea to define the limits of the oil accumulation because, it said, "the presence of a large shallow gas accumulation has made seismic data unreliable."

The company expects oil production from Shelley to begin in the fourth-quarter from the contracted Sevan Voyageur FPSO, which recently had its topsides installed in Rotterdam.

Technip initially will provide diving support, trenching support, and umbilical installation vessels, inspection, repair, and maintenance for Shelley.

It will execute the engineering, installation and commissioning of pipelines, a control umbilical and jumpers, flexible risers, a subsea manifold, and attendant flowlines.

The 3-year contract, worth potentially €190 million, includes an option for an additional period.

Upon completing operations at Shelley, Ocean Guardian was scheduled to "immediately commence drilling a two-legged exploratory well targeting oil in the Paleocene Forties sand at Morro-Coronado in structures analogous to the Huntington discovery," Oilexco said.

Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected].