Var Energi AS has let a contract to Baker Hughes and Norwegian subsea contractor Ocean Installer AS for the engineering, procurement, construction, and installation of subsea systems and associated services for the Balder X project on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
The contract covers EPCI work on 16 subsea production systems, umbilicals, risers, and flowlines to the Jotun A floating production, storage, and offloading unit. The companies also will carry out decommissioning work in the field.
The Balder X project is redeveloping Balder and Ringhorne fields and includes refurbishing and relocating the Jotun A FPSO to the Balder license PL 001—the first production license on the NCS—to extend its production life to 2045, as well as extending the life of the Balder FPSO to 2030. It also includes drilling 15 production wells in Balder field and 11 production wells in Ringhorne field.
Production from Balder field, which lies in the Utsira High area of the North Sea, began in 1999. Gas is exported to Statpipe via Jotun A. Var Energi is operator with 90%. Mime Petroleum AS is partner with 10%.
Ringhorne field, in PL 027 and 169 E in the North Sea, 9 km northeast of the Balder FPSO, is developed with a platform with initial processing and water injection capabilities. Production of oil and gas is routed to the Balder and Jotun installations for final processing, storage, and export. Production began in 2003. Var Energi is operator with 90%. Mime Petroleum is partner with 10%.
Ringhorne East is developed with four wells from the Ringhorne platform with production start-up in 2006. A new drilling campaign from the Ringhorne platform is being progressed, targeting drilling start-up this year. Var Energi is operator of Ringhorne East with 69.98%. Partners are DNO North Sea (Norge) AS 22.62%, and Mime Petroleum 7.4%.
Var Energi formed as the result of the merger of Point Resources AS and Eni Norge AS in late 2018. The company is jointly owned by Eni 69.6% and private equity investor HitecVision 30.4%.
