Recently awarded offshore project contracts are for surveys and installation work in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. As regards completed and ongoing projects, a massive removal effort involving two large crane vessels is underway in the UK North Sea while subsurface characterisation on behalf of an oil major has wrapped up in Egyptian waters.
Subsea 7 to perform installation work for Petrobras
Petrobras has awarded UK-based subsea installation specialist Subsea 7 a contract for the development of the Mero-3 field located approximately 200 kilometres off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro at 2,200 metres water depth in the pre-salt Santos basin.
The contract scope includes engineering, fabrication, installation, and pre-commissioning of 80 kilometres of rigid risers and flowlines for the steel lazy wave production system, 60 kilometres of flexible service lines, 50 kilometres of umbilicals and associated infrastructure, as well as installation of FPSO mooring lines and hook-up.
Project management and engineering will commence immediately at Subsea 7's offices in Rio de Janeiro and Paris.
Fabrication of the pipelines will take place at Subsea 7's spoolbase at Ubu in the state of Vitória and offshore operations are scheduled to be executed in 2023 and 2024, using Subsea 7's fleet of reeled rigid pipelay vessels.
TAQA takes on decommissioning project in Scottish North Sea
UAE-based TAQA has commenced work on an asset removal project in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland.
The Brae Bravo platform, first commissioned in 1988, is being removed over three separate phases in 2021 and 2022. For the work, TAQA has contracted Thialf and Sleipnir, two large semi-submersible crane vessels (SSCVs) owned by Netherlands-based Heerema Marine Contractors.
The first campaign, which began in April, saw the two SSCVs simultaneously in the field for several days to prepare and ultimately remove the flare tower, bridge and jacket. Thialf remains in the field to complete final preparatory works and module separation to allow final removal in the summer.
For the second campaign, Sleipnir will remove the remaining topsides during two trips to the field during the summer of 2021, at which point the only remaining visible element of Brae Bravo will be the top of the jacket above the sea surface.
A dedicated navigational aid will be placed on the remaining structure and a 500-metre safety zone will remain in place until jacket decommissioning is completed in 2022.
All waste materials will be transported to the AF Environmental Base in Vats, Norway, where these will be processed.
Fugro awarded site characterisation contract renewal by Atlantic Shores
Fugro has received a contract renewal from Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind for the provision of real-time wind and metocean measurements off the coast of New Jersey over the next two years.
The award is the latest in a set of three contract renewals between Fugro and Atlantic Shores. Along with metocean services, Fugro's geophysical and geotechnical contracts have also previously been renewed, all three to support the safe design, permitting and construction of future wind farm facilities within the 740-square-kilometre lease area.
For the metocean contract, Fugro is utilising two wind lidar buoys that collect wind, wave, current and meteorological data to optimise wind turbine design, installation, and operations and maintenance. The geophysical and geotechnical contracts started earlier this spring and are focused on continued characterisation of the lease area, export cable routes and inter-array cable modules.
The fieldwork will run until mid-July and is being performed from five vessels, including two third-party vessels local to New Jersey, equipped with advanced data acquisition and analysis capabilities for near-real-time data processing and geoconsulting.
The Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm will have a 3GW generating capacity upon its expected completion in late 2027.
PGS, ION complete Egypt survey for Shell
PGS and ION Geophysical Corporation have completed a survey offshore Egypt on behalf of Shell.
The work utilised the PGS vessels Ramform Tethys and Ramform Sovereign as well as ION's proprietary extended frequency source, which is designed to help capture richer low frequencies to improve subsurface characterisation while limiting higher frequencies to a more ecologically friendly range.
PGS said this recently completed contract is the last in a series of surveys carried out by the company in the Mediterranean starting in July 2020.
Fred Olsen Windcarrier secures three new T&I contracts
Fred Olsen Windcarrier (FOWIC) has over the last two months entered into three new turbine transport and installation (T&I) agreements with a combined value of up to €124 million (US$150.2 million).
The contracts are linked to work in 2022-2024 in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Two will be executed with an upgraded vessel, and combined the projects will cover up to 630 vessel days.
