Offshore accommodation company Floatel International has been awarded a contract by Aker BP ASA for two simultaneous projects in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, where two accommodation support vessels will be required.
The contracts follow a record number—11—of plans for development and operation submitted by Aker BP and partners for fields offshore Norway on Friday.
They will spend more than $20 billion to develop these offshore fields.
Under the contract, Floatel International will supply its Floatel Superior and Floatel Endurance rigs for offshore accommodation services for the NOA Topside and the Krafla Topside, starting after the transportation and installation of the respective topsides.
©Floatel International
The contract will start in mid-2026 and has firm hire periods of 7 and 10 months, respectively, with several options to extend. The contract award is subject to Aker BP obtaining plan for development and operations (PDO) approval from Norwegian authorities.
Peter Jacobsson, Group CEO of Floatel International, comments on this award that the company is very pleased to be given the trust and opportunity to provide their services to Aker BP on these projects. Given the magnitude of the combined projects, it is also a significant contribution to strengthen the company order backlog and provide stability for the future."
The company said that the fact that the contract was awarded at such an early stage also shows that the market demand for high-end semisubmersible accommodation support vessels was increasing. "We are convinced that the demand for our vessels will be high in the future and that the market will be prosperous," Jacobsson said. Financial details were not disclosed. The contract is in suppor of Aker BP's NOAKA area development for which Aker BP filed a development plan with partners Equinor and Lotos.
NOAKA consists of the NOA, Fulla, and Krafla license groups, and the area is located between Alvheim and Oseberg. The area contains a total of around 650 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Total investments are estimated at NOK 115 billion in real terms (currently around $11,6 billion). The development concept consists of an unmanned production platform to the north developed by Equinor (Krafla UPP) and a processing platform with well area and living quarters developed by Aker BP (NOA PdQ) to the south. NOA PdQ is planned with low manning levels and is also being developed to be periodically unmanned after a few years of operation.
The Frøy field will be developed with a normally unmanned wellhead platform that will be tied back to NOA PdQ. NOAKA also represents an extensive subsea development with a total of nine templates. 55 wells are planned in the area. The gas will be exported through a shared pipeline from NOA PdQ via Krafla UPP to Statpipe, while the oil will be exported through a shared pipeline from NOA PdQ to the Grane oil pipeline. Separate joint ventures have been established for the export pipelines for gas and oil with Equinor as operator.
NOAKA will be developed with a shared power supply from shore, operated by Aker BP. Connection to the central grid is planned in Samnanger in Vestland County. This will contribute to very low emissions of CO2 from the area. The entire NOAKA area will be remotely operated from an integrated operations centre and control room onshore in Stavanger.
Until today, Equinor has been the operator for Krafla. When the PDO is submitted, Aker BP takes over as operator for Krafla, making the company the operator for the entire area in both the development and operations phases.
Aker BP said Friday that new names would be used for licence groups and facilities in the area. The southern licence group, previously NOA, will be assigned the field name Hugin.
The northern licence group, previously Krafla, will be assigned the field name Munin. Fulla will keep its name.
The PdQ platform in the south will be named Hugin A, the NUI platform will be named Hugin B, and the UPP platform to the north will be named Munin. The area comprised by the overall development of Hugin, Fulla and Munin will be named Yggdrasil.
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