Allseas’s heavy lift vessel Pioneering Spirit will return to the Valhall area in the Norwegian North Sea to remove three complete platforms and two jackets. The projects will be carried out between 2021 and 2026.
The contract is the latest award triggered by Aker BP under the terms of the frame agreement signed with Allseas in 2017 to provide transport, installation and removal services for the Valhall oil field.
Work comprises removal and disposal of the Drilling Platform (DP) 5950-tonne topsides and 4350-tonne jacket, and the Production and Compression Platform (PCP) 10,900-tonne topsides and 9500-tonne jacket from the Valhall complex. Additionally, the 1100-tonne Hod topsides and 3500-tonne jacket from the connected Hod field, thirteen kilometres to the south, will also be removed and disposed of.
Water depth at the field is approximately seventy metres. Platform preparations are scheduled to commence later this year, continuing into the 2021 lift season. Allseas’ heavy lift vessel Pioneering Spirit will execute the work between 2021 and 2026.
Option invoked
In addition, Aker BP has invoked the option for the removal and disposal of the Valhall Quarters Platform (QP) jacket and the 2/4-G jacket on the Ekofisk field, 24 kilometres north of the Valhall complex. This option was associated with the 2017 award for the removal and disposal of the QP topsides, removed by Pioneering Spirit in June 2019.
The QP topsides was the first of the three original structures (QP, DP, PCP) at Valhall to be removed as part of the modernisation of the Valhall field centre by Aker BP. Hod is remotely operated from Valhall and was the first unmanned platform in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea when production started in August 1990.
Picture: Pioneering Spirit safely removed the 3800-tonne QP topsides in June 2019 and will return to remove the DP and PCP platforms and connecting bridges.
