TAQA plans to imminently put out to tender a lucrative contract to remove Brae Alpha, one of the oldest platforms in the North Sea.
The engineering, preparation, removal and disposal (EPRD) project has an estimated tender date of February 15, according to the NSTA Pathfinder portal, worth in excess of £25m.
Heavy lift contractors Heerema and Allseas have already respectively won major EPRD deals with TAQA on various installations of late – the former won work for four platforms (Eider, Tern, North Cormorant and Cormorant Alpha) in 2022.
Brae Alpha is one of seven TAQA platforms which are expected to cease production by 2027 as the firm shifts all of its UK operations to decommissioning this decade.
Now more than 40 years old, the TAQA operated Brae Alpha started up production in 1983.
The topside and jacket weigh a whopping 33,800 tonnes and 20,000 tonnes respectively.
TAQA (ADX: TAQA) has set a removal window of 2028-2032, however a cessation of production date is still down as “TBD”.
Marathon Oil was the original licensee of the Brae area, situated around 170 miles north-east of Aberdeen.
TAQA has already decommissioned the Brae Bravo platform and upper jacket (though its lower legs remain in place as the firm seeks an OSPAR derogation).
Heerema recently won a contract to remove the East Brae platform.
Harding to follow TAQA Brae Alpha
Pathfinder also revealed that TAQA will similarly put out to tender the EPRD work for its three-legged Harding platform in September.
Again worth more than £25m, TAQA has been working with the supply chain to find an optimum solution for Harding.
Sitting 200 miles north-east of Aberdeen, the installation is a heavy-duty steel jack-up resting on a gravity-based storage tank.
The estimate tender date it September 1, while TAQA has given a removal window of 2028-2032.
More decom work
A flurry of other decom updated have been issued in the monthly Pathfinder notice.
Waldorf Production is tendering on plugging and abandonment work on its Wenlock field, and will later issue a pipeline removal contract in October.
Both deals are worth less than £25m.
Other contracts are being put out on the Helvellynn and Garrow fields, also operated by Waldorf.
Elsewhere CNR International has an upcoming tender on setting on environmental plugs, wellhead severance and removal at its Banff and Kyle phase 2 decom project.
Marigold
Elsewhere, Hibiscus Petroleum confirmed it plans to submit the field development plan and environmental statement for the Marigold project to UK regulators by the end of May.
Work has been underway for several years to evaluate how best to develop the area – thought to contain around 60 million barrels of oil.
The scheme has gone back and forth – with the partners involved having returned to the drawing board after development plans were deemed uneconomic.
Marigold is currently planned as a seven-well project in its first phase, with a second stage dependent on results. The project has previously been considered for nine wells.
Tied back to Piper Bravo, Marigold is expected to start production in 2028.
Kraken
Other work being issued is for the Kraken field.
Operator EnQuest is tendering for a contract, bracketed at less than £25m, for drilling services for a sidetrack campaign due to start in the second quarter of 2025.
Pathfinder is our monthly update on upcoming North Sea work via the NSTA Pathfinder Portal. For more on previous projects, go here:
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