Equinor awards well construction deal to Aquaterra Energy

Aquaterra Energy, an offshore engineering solutions provider, has been selected by Equinor to deliver early well construction operations, using its Well Start solution, on the Johan Sverdrup field, offshore Norway.

Aquaterra said on Tuesday that Equinor required a comprehensive solution for pre-drilling operations and a subsequent platform tieback to minimize time to first oil since the project is in the early stages of development.

The company added that it would engineer and supply nine complete strings of centralizers, associated equipment, and tieback engineering expertise.

Well Start handles all early well construction activities including third-party interfaces, engineering, and equipment.

Aquaterra will manage the work from its headquarters in Norwich and its recently-opened Stavanger office. The company is set to deliver the work in the third quarter of 2018, with the first phase of production scheduled for late 2019.

In this month’s news related to the project, Equinor extended an existing contract with Kongsberg for the Phase 2 of the Johan Sverdrup field development. Also, the accommodation rig Haven started operations at the field while Allseas’ Pioneering Spirit vessel installed the 22,000 tonnes drilling platform topsides.

Johan Sverdrup

Johan Sverdrup is one of the five biggest oil fields on the Norwegian continental shelf. With expected recoverable resources of between 2.1-3.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, it will be one of the most important industrial projects in Norway over the next 50 years.

It will be developed in several phases. Phase 1 is expected to start up in late 2019 with production capacity estimated at 440,000 barrels of oil per day.

Phase 2 is expected to start up in 2022, with full field production estimated to peak at 660,000 barrels of oil per day. Peak production on Johan Sverdrup will be equivalent to 25% of all Norwegian petroleum production.

The plan for development and operation (PDO) for Phase 2 will be submitted during the second half of 2018. The concept decision for Phase 2 consists of another processing platform (P2), modifications to the riser platform and subsea production and injection systems.

Statoil is the operator of the field with 40,0267% interest, with partners being Lundin Norway 22,6%, Petoro 17,36%, AkerBP 11,5733% and Maersk Oil (a company of Total) 8,44%.