Kvaerner lands decommissioning gig with Shell

Norwegian engineering and construction services company Kvaerner has been awarded a contract with Shell for the disposal and demolition of the subsea compression pilot at Nyhamna in Norway. 

The onshore Nyhamna facility processes gas from the Shell-operated Ormen Lange field located 140 km north-west of Kristiansund, in the Norwegian Sea.

The gas from the field arrives onshore at the Nyhamna plant where impurities are removed and then piped through one of the world’s longest subsea pipelines, Langeled, which runs about 1,200 km from Nyhamna to Easington in England.

An upgrade project, which will enable the plant to receive gas from more fields through a new pipeline, is currently in progress.

Kvaerner said on Thursday that the scope of work of this new contract consists of removal and demolition of approximately 2 200 tonnes of modules. The modules will be transported from Nyhamna to Kvaerner’s facilities at Stord for dismantling and recycling. The work will start immediately and the first part, consisting of removal of modules from the test pit will be completed in 2017. The remaining modules will be removed in 2018, said Kvaerner.

“This is an important contract for Kvaerner’s decommissioning unit, and yet again we prove our competitiveness in this marked,” says Guro Løken, SVP Decommissioning & Marine Operations in Kvaerner.

Nyhamna expansion 

Kvaerner noted it has been the main contractor for the expansion of the Nyhamna plant which will be completed in 2017. Kvaerner was also the main contractor when the first part of the plant was built in 2007.

The expansion of the plant consists of two parts. The first part includes land-based compression of gas from the Ormen Lange offshore field with a new compressor which will maintain gas pressure at Nyhamna as the pressure in the reservoir drops.

The second part includes export and process facilities for the Polarled pipeline which will transport gas from the Statoil-operated Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea to Nyhamna, once the field becomes operational. The Polarled pipeline was completed in September 2015. The compression and export of gas through the 482-kilometer long pipeline is scheduled to start in the autumn of 2018.

Shell is the operator for Ormen Lange and the gas plant at Nyhamna but once Aasta Hansteen becomes operational, Gassco will be the operator of Nyhamna with Shell in charge of technical operation.

According to information from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the expansion will increase Nyhamna’s export capacity from 70 to 84 million Sm3 per day.

Offshore Energy Today Staff