Engineering and construction company Wood has won a $42 million contract in Norway to upgrade the gas processing plant that handles gas from the Troll, Kvitebjørn, Visund, and Fram fields located in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
The contract was awarded to Wood by Equinor, on behalf of gas pipeline operator Gassco, and is for engineering, procurement, construction and installation services at the Kollsnes gas processing plant in Norway, located in the municipality of Øygarden, west of Bergen.
Under the EPCI contract, Wood will upgrade the MEG (mono-ethylene glycol) regeneration handling capacity at the Kollsnes gas processing plant where Equinor is the technical service provider. MEG is used to prevent hydrate formation and corrosion in the pipelines. It is part of the well stream coming to Kollsnes where it is regenerated.
Three new modules will be installed at the plant, including a MEG train, a chiller package, and a MEG export pump. The contract includes options for potential future work.
Bjarte Padøy, plant manager at Kollsnes said: "The project will help maintain high regularity and maximum capacity at the plant in a long-term perspective and will further strengthen the work environment and safety in MEG handling at Kollsnes. I am also pleased that this will increase activity at Kollsnes, which is important to the region."
Opened in 1996, the Kollsnes gas plant can process up to 144.5 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) of natural gas per day.
Lars Fredrik Bakke, Wood’s senior vice president in Norway, adds: “Delivering the MEG upgrade at the Kollsnes process plant allows us to leverage our market-leading expertise in downstream processing to support Equinor’s technical operations of this critical piece of onshore energy infrastructure, through which 40% of all Norwegian gas export flows.”
The contract work will start up in September 2020 with installation and completion at Kollsnes during 2022/23.
Fabrication, construction by Kvaerner
Management and engineering will be performed by Wood’s office in Sandefjord. The fabrication and construction work is subcontracted to Kværner and will take place at the Stord yard. Kværner will also perform the installation work at Kollsnes. Kvaerner’s contract is worth approximately NOK 200 million (around USD 22 million), with some options for additional scope.
Kvaerner’s main scope will be fabrication and installation of a new fourth processing train for processing of the MEG (monoethylene glycol) which processes gas shipped from offshore fields through subsea pipelines to shore.
Sturla Magnus, Kvaerner’s executive vice president for the Process and Structures business segment said: "Kvaerner has been a key contractor to numerous onshore process facilities, including the initial development of the Kollsnes plant in the 1990s and later modifications. We will use this expertise for the execution of this new assignment.
"This is also yet an example of how an onshore industry project can be more effectively executed by prefabricating large units at one of our yards before shipping a completed module, compared to stick-building the same unit at a site with more limited facilities and more extensive use of a temporary site crew. We believe there are several more opportunities for onshore projects which we can pursue," Magnus said.