Maersk Oil picks John Crane for Culzean topside maintenance strategy

John Crane Asset Management Solutions (John Crane AMS) has secured a contract to supply Maersk Oil with data services to support the planned maintenance strategy at the Danish company’s Culzean development in the UK North Sea.

John Crane AMS said on Wednesday it would provide data build services as well as establishing a maintenance plan for all topside equipment.

A detailed criticality analysis and maintenance definition (DCAMD) strategy will be developed to cover high-criticality equipment with generic procedures being used for non-critical appliances.

The Culzean gas condensate field has resources estimated at 250-300 million barrels of oil equivalent. Located in the Central North Sea, the high-pressure high-temperature field is expected to begin production in 2019 and supply enough gas to meet 5 percent of UK’s total demand at its peak in 2020/21.

James Reid, project manager at John Crane AMS, said: “We are pleased to deliver a smooth, planned maintenance program for Maersk Oil that combines both preventative and condition based maintenance.”

In October 2015, John Crane announced it had acquired XPD8 Solutions, an Aberdeen independent asset management business. Now, John Crane Asset Management Solutions is a trading name of XPD8 Solutions Limited, which is part of John Crane, itself a division of the global technology company Smiths Group Plc.

John Morrison, managing director at John Crane AMS, said: “To be involved in supporting the maintenance strategy on one of the most significant projects on the UK Continental Shelf in recent years is fantastic news for the company. Having an effective strategy will stand the development in good stead for years to come, giving those in charge the confidence that their topside equipment will perform reliably and efficiently.”

To remind, John Crane AMS announced in June this year it was awarded a five-year contract to provide condition based maintenance services with an undisclosed “major operator” in the UK North Sea.

As for Maersk Oil, the Danish oil company was in the media several times this week. Namely, on Monday, Total said it was set to acquire rival Maersk Oil and Gas for $7.45 billion. Woodmac in its analysis of the deal said the proposed deal is mostly about Maersk Oil’s North Sea assets, namely Culzean in the UK, and a share in the giant Johan Sverdrup oil development in Norway.

On the same day, Maersk Oil awarded a North Sea multi-million-pound abandonment contract to wellbore clean-up & abandonment specialist Coretrax.