VIDEO: Statoil’s Aasta Hansteen substructure leaving dry dock

Norwegian oil major Statoil posted a time-lapse video on Monday, showing the preparations for the sail away of the 200-meter-long Aasta Hansteen substructure.

Statoil said in the description of the video that the first step was filling the dock at Hyundai Heavy Industries’ facility in Ulsan, South Korea, with more than 500 million liters of water and moving the substructure out which took two days.

The company added that the next step was the transfer of the substructure onto a heavy transport vessel and the beginning of the journey from South Korea to Norway.

The 45,000-ton substructure, 50 meters in diameter, is a part of a 70,000-ton spar platform for the Aasta Hansteen field which is located in the Norwegian Sea. HHI is in charge of building both the lower hull and the topsides. The spar platform will be a first of its kind to be installed offshore Norway.

While initially scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2017, the production from the field was postponed in October 2015, due to delays in construction of the platform, with first gas now expected in 2018.

Statoil is the operator of the Aasta Hansteen field with 51 percent interest, while other three licensees are Wintershall, OMV, and ConocoPhillips with 24, 15, and 10 percent, respectively.

Offshore Energy Today Staff