Baker Hughes picks up P&A gig at North Sea oil field

U.S.-headquartered energy technology giant Baker Hughes has landed a new assignment with Norway’s state-owned energy giant Equinor to handle plug and abandonment (P&A) operations in the North Sea at an oil field on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). The American player will also provide project management services on behalf of the operator.

Following the signing of a multi-year framework agreement in March 2025 for integrated plug and abandonment services, Equinor has now tasked Baker Hughes with P&A operations at the Oseberg East field in the North Sea. The U.S. player’s Mature Assets Solutions team will lead the integrated P&A campaign planning phase and deliver integrated P&A services in execution across several wells offshore Norway.

Oseberg East is described as the smallest of the platforms in the Oseberg area, which is situated 25 kilometers northeast of the Oseberg Field Centre. The field’s development concept utilizes an integrated drilling, accommodation, and production platform with equipment for first-stage processing.

While the oil undergoes its second and third-stage processing on the Oseberg Field Centre before it is transported by pipeline to the Sture terminal, water and gas are injected into the reservoir to improve oil recovery.

The Oseberg Field Centre entails three platforms: Oseberg A, B, and D, which are connected by bridges in the southern part of the Oseberg field and the unmanned Oseberg H platform, located 8 kilometers northwest of the field center.

Furthermore, Baker Hughes will establish a P&A Center of Excellence in Bergen and Stavanger to manage the project, bringing together project managers and experts to centralize P&A activities in the North Sea, ensuring the implementation of the most economical and reliable solutions to “responsibly abandon each well,” while maximizing operational efficiencies.

Amerino Gatti, Executive Vice President of Oilfield Services & Equipment at Baker Hughes, highlighted: “Our Mature Assets Solutions experts are well equipped to manage every phase of P&A and optimize operations to meet Equinor’s well abandonment goals.

“As this project unfolds, we will collectively unlock new efficiencies that set new standards for well abandonment solutions, providing cost-effective solutions to Equinor through collaboration, technology, optimization and integration.”

The U.S.-based giant’s well abandonment portfolio encompasses technologies, such as PRIME Powered Mechanical Applications, Casing Integrity & Cement Mapping (CICM), MASTODON casing retrieval system, and the Xtreme SJI mechanical slotting tool. The planning work for the firm’s P&A assignment on the Oseberg East field is now underway, with the execution scheduled to begin in 2026.

Baker Hughes recently secured multiple new jobs, including the one with Aramco in Saudi Arabia and Petrobras in Brazil.

The firm got orders of $6.5 billion in Q1 2025, representing a 14% drop from $7.5 billion in Q4 2024, with the company’s Oilfield Services & Equipment segment winning orders amounting to $3.3 billion in Q1 2025, which is 12% lower than $3.7 billion in Q4 2024

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