Technip has been given a letter of intent to lead the engineering, construction and transportation of what will be the first spar production platform of its type in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
The spar – a partially submerged offshore drilling and production platform – for Statoil’s Aasta Hansteen development, previously called Luva, will be the largest built at 640ft long and will sit in 4,250ft of water.
It will be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea.
Ivar Aasheim, Statoil’s senior vice president for field development on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, said: “Aasta Hansteen is the start of deepwater development in the Norwegian Sea and the development could also open up for tie-backs to other discoveries in the same area.
“The platform will be the first spar with storage capacity and will be able to store about 25,000 standard cubic metres (scm) of condensate, and export gas via the Norwegian Sea Gas Infrastructure.”
Total recoverable reserves for Aasta Hansteen are preliminarily estimated at about 47billion scm of gas and 0.8 billion scm of condensate.
The estimated contract value is more than £423million
Technip’s contract will cover engineering, procurement, construction and transportation of the spar hull, the mooring systems and the design of the steel catenary risers, carried out from Technip’s operating centre in Houston, Texas, and the firm’s office in Oslo.
Statoil expects project sanction in early 2013 with a start-up late 2016.