Engineering news
BG Group has signed contracts worth £300 million for a range of specialist engineering support over the next five years for its Armada, Everest and Lomond platforms in the North Sea.
Wood Group PSN and Stork Technical Services will work alongside BG’s North Sea operations teams to provide engineering, project management and construction services, as well as shutdowns, asset integrity and maintenance support to offshore facilities. The focus will be on better planning and more efficiency which in turn should lead to enhanced value and a more simplified support structure.
BG Group said Amec will continue to provide dedicated support to the Flotel campaigns on Everest and Lomond, which are planned for next year and 2015.
Andy Samuel, managing director of BG Group’s Europe exploration and production asset, said: “A strategic goal for BG is to form key alliances that enhance the delivery of value to the group. We look forward to working closely with Wood Group PSN, Stork and Amec to deliver safe and efficient support to our UK-operated assets.”
Dave Stewart, managing director of Wood Group PSN, said: “This is a significant win in terms of size, value and the number of jobs it will support and we are excited to be working with BG Group. We expect this contract to generate up to 300 jobs onshore and offshore in the UK.”
Meanwhile Chevron's North Sea operation has just awarded a £150 million contract to Dolphin Drilling for a 20-month multi-well drilling and completion programme across several of the oil major's operations in the British sector of the North Sea.
The contract is to provide drilling and completion operations using a semi-submersible rig, the Blackford Dolphin, and includes a rig refurbishment to upgrade the unit for North Sea activity work. The drilling programme is expected to commence in 2015, for an initial period of 572 days.
Chevron has an option to extend the drilling programme for a further one to two years. The US firm said it had contributed £10 billion to the British economy in the last five years. The company has been involved with the UK Continental Shelf for half a century, it said.
Chevron has interests in 10 offshore producing fields in the UK. It operates the Alba, Captain, Erskine and Strathspey fields and is a joint operator of the Britannia field. The company also has interests in five non-operated fields: Brodgar, Callanish, Clair, Elgin/Franklin and Jade.
The news came as energy industry engineering services provider Technip announced that it had been awarded four contracts by Shell UK, Fairfield Energy, Ithaca Energy and Taqa during 2013.
Technip said it was working on: diving operations to prepare for decommissioning of the Shell Delta Brent facilities, under a newly awarded framework agreement to support UK and Norway assets; intelligent pigging operations for Fairfield Energy’s Merlin field development, which was completed in October; light construction work for Ithaca Energy on the Causeway; as well as conductor centraliser maintenance services for Taqa’s Harding field development.
Technip’s operating centre in Aberdeen is managing the projects.