Norway's Storting (parliament) has given the all clear for Phillips Petroleum Co. Norway to use a steel processing and transportation platform in redevelopment of giant Ekofisk oil and gas field in the Norwegian North Sea.
The existing processing and transportation platform is sinking because of seabed subsidence. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has stipulated that safe operation will not be possible beyond 1998 (OGJ, Oct. 19, 1992, p. 42).
Although Phillips opted for a steel platform at the outset of redevelopment planning, Oslo insisted a concrete option be studied in deference to employee organizations anxious to retain work for Norwegian construction yards.
Storting gave final approval for Phillips' 20 billion kroner ($3 billion) plan to install two new platforms in the field in a move designed to deal with subsidence.
A new wellhead structure, designated Platform 2/4X, will be installed in 1996 to act as a production center in the field's later years (see Ekofisk evolution schematic, OGJ, Aug. 15, p. 52).
The new transportation and processing platform, designated Platform J, is slated to come on stream in autumn 1998. The steel jacket will be installed in 1997 and topsides early in 1998.
A Phillips official explained that a steel jacket can be placed in the field ahead of topsides, enabling pipelines and risers to be installed and tested in plenty of time for operations start-up.
A concrete platform would have to be installed as one unit, he said. This could not take place earlier than 1998, according to construction time estimates.
Any delays, such as those typically caused by North Sea's bad weather, could easily take the project beyond the limit set for safe operation of existing facilities by NPD.
Phillips last week let a 240 million kroner ($36.4 million) contract to Aker AS, Oslo, for construction of a jacket for Ekofisk's 2/4X wellhead platform.
The contract covers engineering, materials procurement, fabrication, and completion of jacket and piles.
Engineering work will begin immediately, with fabrication at Aker's Verdal yard set to begin in April 1995.
Delivery of the jacket is slated for April 1996. The 108 m high jacket will weigh about 6,000 metric tons. Total weight of the piles will be 2,800 metric tons.
Meantime, detailed engineering on Platform j is under way, with the aim of placing orders for construction work in third quarter 1995.
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