Oil giant Chevron has agreed a £1.24billion deal with Hyundai Heavy Industries to build a production vessel for a huge oil field west of Shetland.
Hyundai will provide the floating offshore facility for the Rosebank discovery, which will reportedly cost nearly £4billion to develop.
South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai is due to hand over the vessel – which will have a capacity to produce 100,000 barrels of oil and up to 190million cubic feet of gas per day – by the end of November 2016.
Rosebank, 109 miles north-west of Shetland, is estimated to hold 240million barrels of oil equivalent. It is one of several multibillion-pound new developments in the area, including Clair Ridge and Mariner which are being developed by BP and Mariner respectively.
A Chevron spokesman said: “This is an important milestone for the project.
“A successful Rosebank development will help unlock the potential of reserves west of Shetland, a region which holds a significant portion of the UK’s undeveloped oil and gas resources.”
The US oil and gas firm said last year the project was expected to lead to the creation of 300 jobs out of its Aberdeen base.
The firm’s managing director for Europe, Brenda Dulaney, had said a further 1,000 jobs would be supported in the UK’s oil and gas supply chain as the project was developed.
Chevron has already awarded two other large contracts for the development.
Dolphin Drilling won a £650million deal to drill at Rosebank last October. It will use the Bollsta Dolphin platform, being built by Hyundai in Korea.
Energy service firm Wood Group Kenny also agreed a deal with Chevron last November to lay 143 miles of pipe connecting the field to the future Shetland Islands regional gas export line (Sirge), which will run into the St Fergus gas terminal near Peterhead. Production at Rosebank will reportedly start in 2017.
