Subsea 7, Kvaerner net North Sea Valhall area construction, dismantling contracts

Offshore staff

LUXEMBOURG/FORNEBU, Norway – Aker BP has contracted Subsea 7 to construct and install subsea facilities for the Hod field redevelopment in the southern Norwegian North Sea.

The project involves a new wellhead platform (Hod B) tied back 12 km (7.5 mi) to the Valhall field center via rigid pipelines and an umbilical.

Subsea 7’s scope includes the EPCI for the pipelines and umbilicals and tie-ins using vessels from the company’s fleet.

The production pipeline will be a pipe-in-pipe design and will feature a first application of mechanically lined pipe based on GluBi technology from BUTTING.

Subsea 7 will manage the project and engineering from its offices in Stavanger, while fabrication of the pipelines will take place at the company’s spoolbase at Vigra, Norway. Offshore operations are scheduled for later this year and 2021.

Allseas has contracted Kvaerner to dismantle and recycle three large platform topsides, three jackets and four bridges from the Aker BP-operated Valhall and Hod fields in the Norwegian North Sea.

Combined weight of these structures is 33,000 metric tons (36,376 tons), and there are options to handle a further 5,000 metric tons (5,511 tons). At peak Kvaerner will employ around 100 personnel on the program.

Valhall started production started in 1982 and along with Hod has produced more than 1 Bboe.

Kvaerner had already started decommissioning Valhall’s original accommodation platform, and will now do the same for the drilling and production platforms and the redundant unmanned Hod platform that is connected to the Valhall field center.

Allseas will remove all the structures and deliver them to Kvaerner’s decommissioning facilities at Stord, western Norway. The drilling platform, process platform and one jacket from the Valhall field will arrive first in 2022, followed by Hod and the remaining structures in 2025.

Kvaerner said it would start the method work later this year, with detail offshore mapping and engineering work due to get under way in 2021.

Stord typically recycles around 98% of decommissioned structures.

06/30/2020