Hughes Subsea plays ‘pivotal role’ in topside and subsea work scopes for North Sea FPSO

The UK-based Hughes Subsea, an OEG Group company, has won a contract to provide daughter-craft diving services for a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel operating in the North Sea. This FPSO is located at the Anasuria cluster and Anasuria Operating Company (AOC), a UK-based jointly‐controlled firm by Ping Petroleum and Hibiscus Petroleum’s Anasuria Hibiscus UK, acts as the installation and pipeline operator for this FPSO and cluster.

Throughout the month-long campaign, Hughes Subsea delivered support for mooring chain change out, executed the installation and removal of sea-chest blanks, and completed a comprehensive inspection program for the FPSO Anasuria, positioned 175 km east of Aberdeen. In addition, a rigging team was mobilized in support of topside operations.

Bob Kingdom, Senior Project Manager at Hughes Subsea, commented: “The Hughes team displayed a ‘can-do’ attitude from start to finish, focusing on professional and efficient delivery. The effective communication and willing collaboration across all vendors made this a great project to be involved in.”

Furthermore, Hughes Subsea mobilized the dive intervention craft, Hughes Hunter, and tender vessel, Cardhu, onto the Normand Frontier accompanied by a 45-member project team during the operational phase. While vessel owners contributed WROV and survey support, two independent telemetry systems facilitated real-time camera feeds from both the diver and topside team which were distributed around the vessel. 

To bring the communications plan to life, Hughes Subsea’s OEG sister company, Fern, was in charge of providing radios to all project vessels while a Starlink feed was installed for optimized information distribution. Aside from the FPSO scope, the UK player’s team, with assistance from the Normand Frontier, deployed anode skids and concrete mattresses.

Moreover, the Hughes Subsea team conducted all diving operations using nitrox to maximize productivity, ensuring maximized bottom times and reducing the number of personnel required to deliver the scope. According to the UK firm, the project was delivered “efficiently, safely, and ahead of schedule.”

Graeme Shepherd, Project Manager at Anasuria Operating Company Limited, remarked: “Hughes Subsea has played a pivotal role in the recent mooring chain changeout and associated topside and subsea work scopes for AOC, which was an integral part of AOC’s ongoing asset life extension program aimed at extending the operating life of our FPSO.

“Throughout the duration of this project, the level of professionalism and collaborative teamwork exhibited by Hughes Subsea alongside our other partners and teams was nothing short of exceptional which was key to delivering the highly successful campaign.”

This comes over a year after Anasuria Operating Company became the installation and pipeline operator for the Anasuria cluster and FPSO in the North Sea. This encompasses a 100% interest in the Anasuria, Teal, Teal South, and Guillemot A fields along with a 38.65% interest in the Cook field.

Hughes Subsea secured new deals this year, including a contract with 50Hertz Offshore for boulder removal services on the cable route of the Ostwind 3 project and possible future projects in the Baltic Sea and/or North Sea.