Wood Group Wins Utgard Design Scope
Monday 29 August 2016
UK contractor Wood Group has landed a detailed design scope deal from Statoil covering the oil giant’s development plan for the Utgard gas and condensate field in the Norwegian North Sea.
The $1 million workscope involves the subsea tie-back of the field to facilities in the Sleipner area and is the first call-off from a master services agreement (MSA) penned in late May.
The three-year contract will be run out of Wood’s offices in Stavanger and Oslo, the company said on Monday, to coincide with the opening of the ONS conference in the Norwegian oil capital of Stavanger.
Earlier this month Statoil submitted its development plan for the minor field, formerly known as Alfa Sentral and which contains 56.4 million barrels of oil equivalent.
It will be produced via two subsea wells tied back to the Sleipner area, with start-up scheduled for late 2019.
Utgard was found as far back as 1982, straddling the Norway-UK maritime border, but has remained undeveloped until now because there has not been enough capacity at Sleipner. Now, the project will help stem the production decline at Sleipner as part of a further development of the area towards 2030.
Statoil has already reduced the Utgard budget to Nkr3.5 billion ($416 million) from a preliminary estimate of Nkr4 billion to Nkr4.5 billion, and the operator is looking for additional savings.
The project consists of a four-slot subsea template, two production wells and possibly a third at a later date, a 21-kilometre pipeline to the Sleipner T platform, a control cable to the Sleipner A platform, and modifications at Sleipner T.
At plateau, Utgard will produce about 44,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Contracts for modifications, drilling and well services, subsea equipment and marine operations will be awarded over the coming months.
Statoil is operator and holds a 62% stake in production the Norwegian Utgard licence, with Lotos and Total as partners on 28% and 10%, respectively. About 40% of the resources in the cross-border field lie on the UK side, where Statoil is the sole owner in UK licence P312.
Wood Group’s MSA signed in May will see it support the life cycles of Statoil’s onshore and offshore facilities and provide services including engineering studies, detailed engineering, procurement services and management assistance services.