Offshore staff
STAVANGER, Norway – On April 7, two years after the first cut for the construction, the giant main support frame (MSF) module for the Johan Sverdrup P2 platform left Aibel’s yard in Thailand, and is now heading for Norway.
The Johan Sverdrup process platform II (P2) is Aibel’s largest project to date, weighing about 23,000 tons and engaging up to 4,000 associates at its peak. Equinor (then Statoil) awarded the company an engineering, procurement, and construction contract for the topsides in April 2018.
Less than a year after the contract award, the first construction activities for the largest of three modules, the MSF, started at the company’s yard in Laem Chabang and at subcontractor Deeline in Rayong, Thailand.
Two years later, the completed module comprises four decks with a total weight of about 14,500 tons. This, the company claims, makes it the largest platform module ever built on Thai soil – beating the previous record held by the MSF for the Johan Sverdrup drilling platform, also built by Aibel Thailand.
In addition, during the construction, the project also set a record for the heaviest lift performed at Aibel Thailand, and the load-out of the completed module was the largest land transport ever completed in Thailand, using 604 axle lines, which could even be a world record, the company claimed.
In Norway, the MSF module will be merged with the two remaining modules, UPM and HVDC, into one platform for the Johan Sverdrup oil field in the Norwegian North Sea. Heerema’s semisubmersible crane vessel Sleipnir is expected to perform the lifting operation. The complete platform is scheduled for delivery to Equinor in early 2022.
Johan Sverdrup Phase 2, due to start up in 4Q 2022, will increase oil production through the field center to 720,000 b/d.
Partners in the Johan Sverdrup field are Equinor (operator, 42.6%), Lundin Energy Norway (20%), Petoro (17.36%), Aker BP (11.5733%) and, Total (8.44%).
04/14/2021
