IKM Subsea set for IMR work on Shell’s field duo

IKM Subsea’s remotely operated vehicle Merlin UCV, integrated on to Siem Offshore’s platform supply vessel Siem Pride, is set to start the IMR work on Shell’s Ormen Lange and Draugen fields in the Norwegian Sea.

Norske Shell has awarded IKM Subsea a 5 + 5 year contract in 2015, and the work will begin in March, IKM Subsea said.

The 2016 scope of work will include several inspections on Norske Shell’s deepwater gas field Ormen Lange and the Draugen oil field.

IKM said it would perform pipeline surveys, structure inspections, wellhead inspections, and AMT recovery this spring.

According to the company, the Merlin UCV ROV is customized for IMR and drill support, and uses a seven thruster propulsion system.

The Ormen Lange field was discovered in 1997. It has been developed with sea-floor installations at depths between 800 and 1,100 metres, combined with the Nyhamna onshore plant in Norway, for processing and exporting the gas.

Following processing at the onshore facility in Norway, the gas is exported through a 1,200-kilometre long pipeline to the reception centre in Easington on the east coast of the UK. According to Shell, the field supplies approximately 20% of the UK’s gas.

Norske Shell is the operator with Statoil, Petoro, Dong and ExxonMobil as partners.

Back in 2014, Shell halted the offshore compression project for the Ormen Lange field and the concept selection work due to spiralling costs, but said it would reconsider it in early 2016.

The other field IKM is set to work on is the Draugen. The oil field was Shell’s first operated field in Norway and it started production in 1993.

Shell’s northernmost field is located in the Norwegian Sea, in 250 meters of water, 150 km north of Kristiansund, Norway.

Petoro and VNG are the other two partners in the field.