IKM Ocean Design has been awarded a pipeline front-end engineering and design contract from Statoil for the Aasta Hansteen deep-water field off Norway.
The Norwegian contractor will carry out FEED design work, with an option for detailed engineering, on pipelines and cables to be installed at the harsh-environment Norwegian Sea field, formerly named Luva.
In addition, the work will reportedly encompass similar FEEDs on the Hansteen subsea template as well as templates for satellite prospects Haklang and Snefrid that could be developed as future tiebacks to the main field. No value was disclosed for the award.
The Hansteen job was likened to “extreme sport” for IKM’s team of subsea engineers by the leader of its Trondheim office, Bjorn Lunde , due to harshl conditions at the field, including 25-metre waves, sub-zero temperatures and a water depth of 1300 metres.
“The conditions are extremely challenging in relation to the weather, waves and currents. There have never been operations at such depths and under such tough environmental conditions on the Norwegian shelf,” he said.
Operator Statoil is looking to develop the field using a giant spar platform, targeting investments of Nkr34 billion ($5.84 billion) covering the facility, subsea equipment, wells and flowlines.
It will be the first time such a unit has been deployed off Norway, as well as the first deep-water field to be developed in the Norwegian Sea.
[mappress] Subsea World News Staff , April 13, 2012; Image: IKM