Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has approved various plans for manned underwater operations on Norwegian fields in 2018.
Statoil has signed framework agreements with TechnipFMC and Subsea 7 to maintain pipelines extending across foreign continental shelves, but under Norwegian jurisdiction, and carry out emergency repairs for underwater installations and pipelines.
LDC Seven Spray will be used for the repair of corrosion damage to caissons at the Oseberg field and other operational and project activities.
TechnipFMC will use its diving support vessels (DSV) Deep Arctic, light diving craft (LDC) Technip Seahunter, and the newbuild DSV Deep Explorer.
Subsea 7's agreement involves the DSVs Seven Falcon, Seven Atlantic and Pelican and Seven Spray.
Point Resources has signed a separate agreement with Subsea 7 for underwater activities at the Balder, Jotun and Ringhorne fields using Seven Atlantic.
Gassco also said it wishes to make use of the framework agreements.