French oilfield services provider, Technip, was awarded a lump sum front-end engineering design (FEED) contract by Norway’s oil giant Statoil ASA for the development of the Luva floating platform, offshore Norway, at a water depth of approximately 1,300 meters (4,265 feet).
The contract covers the design and planning for procurement, construction and transportation of a Spar hull and the mooring systems as well as the design of the steel catenary risers. The award builds on the study work (including pre-FEED) that has been ongoing since early 2010 to document the suitability of a Spar platform in Norwegian waters. Spar is a cylindrical, partially submerged offshore drilling and production platform that is particularly well adapted to deepwater.
Deepwater pioneer
The Luva field, that lies in a water depth of 1300 meters, is a deep-water pioneer in the Norwegian Sea and it will be the first developed with a Spar platform on the Norwegian continental shelf.
This award confirms Technip’s leadership in the design of Spar platforms, mooring systems and steel catenary risers, and further confirms that the Spar continues to be the platform of choice for certain developments, not only in Gulf of Mexico and the Far East, but also in new basins, in this case the Norwegian Sea.
Technip’s operating center in Houston, Texas will execute the contract in cooperation with the Technip operation centers in Norway and Finland, further highlighting Technip’s strength of executing projects using multiple engineering centers.
World’s largest
Statoil, along with its partners in the field, on January 30 announced the decision to develop the Luva field with a Spar platform which will be one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Commenting on the decision, Ivar Aasheim, senior vice president for NCS field development in Statoil said: “This development may represent the start of deep-water production in the Norwegian Sea, and it will enable the tie-in of other discoveries in the same area” .
The total investment cost for the development is estimated to USD 5.7 billion.
[mappress] Offshore Energy Today Staff, March 8, 2012; Image: Statoil