NORWAY’S Statoil has awarded Aibel a £250million (2.7billion NOK) contract to build the topsides for the Gudrun platform in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
The contract embraces engineering, procurement and construction of the platform deck and processing facility, and mating with the steel jacket. The oil company claimed that the Norwegian contractor won the work amid strong international competition.
Terje Masdal, project director in Statoil, said: “Technical and commercial criteria underpin the awarding and Aibel delivered the best bid.”
The topsides will be built with a process facility for partial treatment of oil&gas. Gudrun will be supplied with electricity through a cable from the nearby Sleipner field.
The contract for the platform’s steel jacket was awarded earlier to Aker Solutions, while Italy’s Saipem won the contract for transport and installation of the jacket and topsides.
One of Statoil’s largest current developments on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, the Gudrun field holds recoverable reserves totalling some 127million barrels equivalent – two-thirds of which is oil.
The reservoir is high-pressure and temperature and will utilise technology developed by Statoil and applied in the Kvitebjorn and Kristin developments.
Oil&gas will be transported from Gudrun to the Sleipner A platform, and gas will be sent to market via existing infrastructure.