Subsea 7 Gets Ærfugl Job From Aker BP

Subsea 7 has been awarded a sizeable contract by Aker BP for the Ærfugl Phase 2 gas field development, located approximately 210km west of Sandnessjøen in the Norwegian Sea.

Subsea 7 defines a sizeable contract as being between $50 million and $150 million.

The company said on Thursday that this EPCI contract was a long-distance tie-back involving the application of Subsea 7’s Electrically Heat Traced Flowline (EHTF) technology for a distance of 13.5km from the subsea location to the existing Skarv infrastructure.

Subsea 7 has a long-term subsea alliance agreement with Aker BP. Project management and engineering will start immediately at Subsea 7’s offices in Stavanger, Norway. Fabrication of the EHTF system will take place at Subsea 7’s spoolbase at Vigra, Norway with offshore operations taking place during 2020 and 2021.

Monica Th. Bjørkmann, Vice President Subsea 7 Norway said: “Electrically Heat Traced Flowlines have been developed by Subsea 7, in collaboration with InterPipe, to deliver leading insulation performance and enable cost-effective long-distance tie-backs. We look forward to continuing our alliance with Aker BP for the development of Ærfugl and future projects.”

The Ærfugl is a gas condensate field about 210 kilometers offshore Sandnessjøen in Norway. It is a subsea project, which is being developed in two phases. Both phases are tied into the existing FPSO vessel on the Skarv field, which is located approx. 210 km west of Sandnessjøen.

The Phase 2 of the project was sanctioned last November, three years ahead of the original plan. The goal is to start production from the first Phase 2 well as early as in first half of 2020. This means that production start-up for phase 2 will come before the start-up of Ærfugl phase 1.

Also on Thursday, Aker BP awarded a contract for the subsea production system for the second phase of the Ærfugl development to Aker Solutions. The subsea delivery will include wellheads, vertical subsea trees, satellite structures, control systems, a tie-in module and about 30 kilometers of umbilicals.