The 24,000 tonne topside for the Aasta Hansteen gas platform arrived in Norway after a 14,500 nautical mile long journey. That’s equivalent to nearly 26,900 km, or more than 640 marathons!
The lady was brought home to Norway by Dockwise White Marlin. In Ølensvåg the topside will be transferred to two new vessels that will take it to Stord to be mated with the substructure, creating the world’s largest spar-platform.
The Aasta Hansteen discovery was made in 1997 and actually comprises three separate discoveries; Luva, Haklang and Snefrid South, with recoverable reserves estimated at 47 billion standard cubic metres (Sm3) of gas.
The drilling campaign on Aasta Hansteen is planned to start towards the end of 2017 or the beginning of 2018.
The gas field is being developed with a Spar FPSO platform, as the first on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and the largest in the world. Spar is a floating installation consisting of a vertical cylindrical hull moored to the seabed.
Recovering the resources on Aasta Hansteen will be demanding as the discovery is located far from land and outside the established infrastructure. The water depth is significant and the weather conditions are challenging.
The PDO (Plan for development and operations) was submitted to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy at the end of December 2012.
The Aasta Hansteen field will be run from Harstad, by Statoil’s Operations North organisation. The supply base will be located in Sandnessjøen and the helicopter base in Brønnøysund.