Vol. 234 No. 5
General Electric’s Power Conversion business will provide systems to power, propel, navigate, position and control drillships and semi-submersibles in Brazil’s pre-salt fields. In the last 12 months, GE has won contracts valued at more than $600 million. GE is in the process of building systems for 22 of the 29 drillships for the current phase of Petrobras’ oil and gas exploration. GE has previous experience in supplying equipment for other deepwater operations.
Stone Energy was announced as the 2013 recipient of the National Ocean Industries Association’s “Safety-in-Seas Award” for safety leadership in pioneering a new decommissioning method. Made possible through the use of a new 335-ft, self-elevating Montco liftboat, the new method departs from the traditional approach of performing decommissioning work steps sequentially, in favor of performing them concurrently. The new method was applied during Stone’s 2012 Gulf of Mexico decommissioning campaign.
Integrated major Hess Corporation said that it will close its London office before the end of this year. Closure of the London office follows an announcement on March 4 that Hess will exit its retail, energy marketing and energy trading businesses, as part of its ongoing transformation into a pure-play E&P company. The $23-billion (£15-billion) firm declined to say how many employees would be affected by the closure. The London office, until now, has been responsible for North Sea E&P operations.
Ampo Poyam Valves will supply a series of cryogenic valves for Shell’s Prelude FLNG, the world’s first FLNG facility, and for Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG liquefaction project, the world’s first bi-directional facility capable of exporting natural gas and re-gasifying imported LNG. Once operational, Prelude FLNG will produce at least 5.3 MMtpa of liquids. Ampo will supply a first series of 1,900 cryogenic ball valves, in austenitic stainless steel, with a special design for the project. For the Sabine Pass project, Ampo will supply a series of valves for trains 1 and 2, some of which will be 36-in. and 42-in. cryogenic HIPPS service valves.
Technip, leader of a consortium with Japanese engineering company JGC, was awarded a contract by JSC Yamal LNG to carry out the engineering, procurement, supply, construction and commissioning of an integrated natural gas liquefaction facility. The project will start immediately with a phase of detailed engineering, estimation and early procurement. Owned by Novatek (80%) and Total (20%), the Yamal LNG facility will have a production capacity of 16.5 MMtpa, and will be based on the resources of the South Tambey gas condensate field in Russia.
InterMoor has been awarded a construction license to build facilities at the new Industrial Complex of Açu Superport, in São João da Barra, in northern Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Construction of the service base began in April 2013. The facility will be built on a 52,300-sq-m plot on the right bank of the terminal’s inland channel.
Based in Houston, private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners announced that it has formed a new, Denver-based company named Jagged Peak Energy LLC. The new firm will focus on acquisition, exploration and development of oil and gas assets in select North American resource basins. Quantum and management team members have committed more than $400 million to the new company. Veteran Denver executive Joe Jaggers, who previously headed Ute Energy LLC for Quantum, has been named chairman, CEO and president.
Aker Solutions has won a contract to provide hook-up, commissioning and facility management services for Premier Oil at the operator’s Solan field development, west of Shetland. The hook-up project will see two subsea production and two subsea injection wells tied back to a fixed production platform in Block 205/26a of the UK North Sea, the first of its kind west of Shetland. The platform will produce oil that will be stored in a subsea tank before being exported via an offloading system to shuttle tankers.
Atlas Pipeline Partners has agreed to acquire Teak Midstream for $1 billion in cash, giving the company an entry point into the liquids-rich Eagle Ford shale play of South Texas. NGP Energy Capital Management put Teak up for sale in March 2013. Teak has a long-term gathering and processing agreement with Comstock Resources and another undisclosed producer.
Centrica and Qatar Petroleum International said they have reached an agreement with Suncor Energy to acquire a vast chunk of its natural gas and crude oil business in Canada for nearly $1 billion. This is the first investment that the two companies have made together since signing an agreement to explore such purchases two years ago.
Derrick Services has completed installation work on EnQuest’s Thistle platform power upgrade project. The group was contracted by brownfield services company, Wood Group PSN, to perform work on the North Sea project. The independent producer has undertaken the Thistle Late Life Extension (LLX) project as part of a strategy to recover an estimated 35 million bbl of oil from Thistle and Deveron fields.
WesternGeco has begun acquisition of its Ice Bear 2 multi-client 3D survey in the western Barents Sea, using its new IsoMetrix marine isometric seismic technology. The isometric inline and crossline sampling delivered by the IsoMetrix technology will provide high-resolution broadband imaging in this geologically complex area. Ice Bear 2 lies to the north of the WesternGeco Bjørnøya Ice Bear and West Loppa 3D seismic survey areas, where the Havis and Skrugard discoveries were made.
ABB has been appointed the main electrical contractor for a new FPSO vessel at Ichthys oil and gas field, in the Timor Sea, offshore Western Australia. The order is worth $30 million and was awarded by the FPSO’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. This is the third major contract that ABB has been awarded for the Ichthys project.
Abakan has entered into a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a facility to manufacture clad pipe on a large scale inside the Suape export processing zone in Pernambuco State, Brazil. The facility will help meet the demand for corrosion-resistant clad pipe for use in Brazil’s oil production, where more than 80% of fields are highly sour. The large-scale, four-line clad pipe manufacturing plant will produce up to $200 million in clad products annually.
North Star Shipping, a division of the family-owned global shipping and energy services firm, The Craig Group, has been awarded a $97-million contract with BP. The multi-service contract is for five years, with a possible extension of five years, and includes tanker assist, platform supply and emergency and response rescue vessels, all supporting BP’s operations in the North Sea. Four vessels, with a possible fifth to be added, are being contracted.
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