The subsea tie-back solutions will contribute to increase oil and gas recovery from Statoil’s fast-track portfolio.

Statoil has awarded FMC a contract for subsea production systems (SPS) for the Gullfaks South field, with options to cover Statoil's subsea tie-back demand in the fast-track portfolio for 2014 and 2015. Estimated contract value is close to NOK 1.2 billion, in addition to possible extentions worth NOK 4 billion.

"Standardised subsea solutions for fast-track developments are important for the development of marginal fields near existing infrastructure. The Gullfaks South project for increased recovery realising 65 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) illustrates the potential," says head of Statoil’s fast-track developments, Halfdan Knudsen.

Standardised equipment
A subsea production system comprises a wellhead, x-mas tree equipment, template structures, a manifold and a control system. Statoil has a frame agreement with its suppliers on SPS services, and FMC is one of these suppliers. The contractor will deliver subsea equipment for relevant fast-track projects and tie-back demand in 2014 and 2015.

"What is special about this contract is that the technical requirements will be frozen for a two-year period to form a standard catalogue for subsea production systems", says head of technology excellence in Statoil, Siri Espedal Kindem.

"Statoil has been working closely with the supplier industry to develop standard equipment for the fast-track field development portfolio. This means that we can build equipment quickly and develop marginal fields more efficiently."

Statoil has set new requirements enabling the same systems to be used regardless of which supplier is chosen to deliver the seabed infrastructure. This will provide simplified logistics and standardised equipment to improve the efficiency of the operations.

Statoil is operator and Petoro is partner
The project is contingent on an investment decision which is expected at the end of summer 2012. Pre-investments in subsea production systems have been undertaken to secure production start-up and taking into account long lead items.

Modification contract
Statoil has also this week awarded a contract to Apply Sørco for performing topside modifications on Gullfaks C. The project is worth an estimated NOK 375 million and will commence immediately. The modifications on the platform are necessary to realise the subsea wet gas compression, which will increase recovery from the Gullfaks South reservoir by 22 million boe.