FEED Contest Heats up for Johan Sverdrup platform
Monday 3 October 2016
Aker Solutions, Aibel and others set to face off in race to provide Statoil with second processing facility for giant field off Norway
Norwegian contractors Aker Solutions and Aibel are expected to face off early next year in a tender to carry out front-end engineering and design work on the second processing platform to be installed on Statoil’s huge Johan Sverdrup field off Norway.
Planning for the second stage of development at Johan Sverdrup in the North Sea has entered a new phase, with Statoil and its partners having already agreed that a new processing platform will form an integral part of the project.
That will be welcome news for fabricators to have a topsides job in the range of 20,000 tonnes to target.
However, operator Statoil has been working hard to cut costs, and the scale of the fabrication bounty, by reducing the size of a facility that was originally slated to weigh in at more than 27,000 tonnes.
Statoil and engineering partners Aker Solutions and Aibel have successfully cut that back significantly and are looking to do more.
According to a Statoil spokesman, the facility’s weight was pegged in June this year slightly above 21,000 tonnes, including a 2000-plus tonne power module.
Sources said that the same contenders that competed for the first phase processing platform will likely compete for the second facility. It is understood that Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea, which is building the first topsides, will be interested in building the second unit too, and will likely face competition from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, Singapore Marine Offshore Platforms (formerly SMOE) and Kvaerner of Norway.
However, industry sources suggested Statoil might want to include more bidders, saying that while the Norwegian operator ruled out Chinese yards and players in the Middle East first time round, it might want to hear what they have to offer this time.
The platform will have capacity to process about 220,000 barrels per day and conceptual work has already been carried out by Aker and Aibel, with the feed contract slated for award in March 2017.
Industry sources suggested that while both contractors are well positioned for the job, Aker may be frontrunner because of its experience working on the processing platform for the first phase.
Sources also did not rule out that international engineering houses such as KBR and CB&I of the US could compete for the contract.
The current, but unconfirmed, base case for Sverdrup phase two envisages, in addition to the processing platform, installation of an unmanned wellhead platform at Avaldsnes on the eastern flank of the field in 2022, with two new subsea satellite developments at Geitungen at the north flank in 2022 and Kvitsoy at the southern flank in 2023.
The Norwegian operator confirmed recently that work on the second phase concept will continue into 2017 before a choice is finalised, with a spokesman explaining the partners need to decide whether to go for the base case with the wellhead platform or use only subsea facilities in addition to the processing platform.
Main contract awards are planned for mid-2019 and, while it is very early in the process, fabricators including Kvaerner, Hereema of the Netherlands and Spain’s Dragados are mentioned as possible contenders for the wellhead platform if that option is pursued.
The second stage development will also include installation of a new module on the first-phase riser platform, while a drilling rig contract will also be awarded in 2019.
Statoil is still deciding whether to use a jack-up or a semi-submersible drilling rig for that work. The overall phase two project is currently planned to include 26 wells, of which 15 will be oil producers.
Statoil believes that it will be able to execute the project in 30 months, between the first quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2022.
The plan for development and operation for phase one of Johan Sverdrup originally envisaged project pre-sanctioning of future phases this year and an investment decision at the end of 2017.
Now, however, the partners have agreed an updated