France's TotalFinaElf SA has installed the production-utilities-quarters platform for its Elgin-Franklin production development in the North Sea off Scotland. The platform was installed at Elgin field, 240 km east of Aberdeen in the Central Graben area.
Elgin and Franklin fields have complex, high-temperature (190� C.), high-pressure (1,100 bars) reservoirs that are 5,300 m below sea level. TotalFinaElf will produce natural gas condensates from the fields, located 240 km east of Aberdeen in the Central Graben Area. Production is scheduled to begin at yearend at the fields, which have estimated reserves of 800 million boe.
TotalFinaElf subsidiary Elf Exploration UK PLC is operator of the fields.
The TMB consortium, which includes Technip Geoproduction, McDermott Marine Construction, and the McDermott-Halliburton Co. venture Barmac, constructed the platform at Barmac's dry dock at Nigg, Scotland. The platform weighs 43,000 tons and is the largest single steel structure built for the North Sea, says TotalFinaElf.
Meanwhile, Dyas UK Ltd. and ONEPM UK Ltd., the respective subsidiaries of The Netherlands' Dyas BV and Oranje-Nassau Energie BV, said last week they've signed agreements with Shell UK Ltd. to purchase Shell's 4.375% equity share in the Elgin and Franklin fields. Oranje-Nassau and Dyas will both acquire half of Shell's current equity in those fields.