WATCH: Heerema’s largest vessel slides North Sea oil & gas platform’s new jacket into place

Norwegian oil and gas player Aker BP has made progress in bringing an offshore platform to life by installing a new jacket at an oil and gas development in the North Sea, off the coast of Norway.

The installation of the jacket, performed by Heerema Marine Contractors‘ Sleipnir vessel, is said to mark a major milestone for the Yggdrasil project. After the Hugin A 22,000-tonne steel structure was launched from the barge into the sea, the Dutch giant’s largest semi-submersible crane vessel upended the jacket in a controlled maneuver and landed it in the exact position.

Aker BP has revealed that its next step is to secure the jacket with 20 piles, each weighing 360 tonnes. With the Hugin A jacket installed on the seabed in the Yggdrasil area as the first visible offshore structure in place, the operator claims to be on track to start drilling production wells in the Hugin license after the summer.

Heerema's vessel places Hugin A jacket to its designated spot

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These wells will be drilled using the 2014-built Noble Integrator jack-up rig, which is capable of working in a water depth of 492 feet, with a maximum drilling depth of 40,000 feet. Aker BP entered into drilling and wells alliance agreements in January 2023 with Noble Corporation, Odfjell Drilling, and Halliburton to undertake drilling activities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS).

The Norwegian player confirmed the start of construction activities on Yggdrasil in September 2023, with the cutting ceremony for the first steel plates for Hugin A at Aker Solutions’ yard. The project, estimated at over $10.3 billion at the time, entails the Hugin, Fulla, and Munin license groups between Alvheim and Oseberg in the North Sea. Aker BP’s partners in the area are Equinor and PGNIG Upstream Norway.

Hugin A, anticipated to be the largest topside ever assembled in the Stord yard area, is a part of the Yggdrasil development and consists of a 28-ton production platform and a 20,500-ton steel jacket delivered from Aker Solutions’ yard in Verdal.

With the gross resources of over 700 million barrels of oil equivalent in mind, extensive new infrastructure is planned, encompassing three platforms, nine subsea templates, new pipelines for oil and gas export, and power from shore, enabling the entire Yggdrasil area to be remotely operated from an integrated operations center and control room onshore in Stavanger. 

The Yggdrasil development inlcudes an unmanned platform, Hugin B, which will be delivered from Verdal and tied back to Hugin A. Aibel is tasked with the delivery of the topside for Munin, while Multiconsult will provide all necessary onshore civil engineering for the power from shore system.

Aker BP also recently achieved progress in the Valhall project by moving the utility module for the Valhall PWP platform out of the Worley Rosenberg hall in Stavanger, after it reached the hall’s maximum height. Once the final section gets installed, the module will weigh approximately 4,800 tonnes and stand 55 meters tall.

Valhall PWP-Fenris is one of the Norwegian firm’s biggest development projects, which will significantly extend the Valhall field’s operational lifetime.

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