VIDEO: Statoil holds naming ceremony for Aasta Hansteen spar platform in Norway

The world’s largest and Norway’s first spar platform built for the Statoil-operated Aasta Hansteen development off Norway was named at Stord on International Women’s Day, March 8.

Norway’s oil giant Statoil launched a video via social media on Thursday of the Aasta Hansteen naming ceremony held at Kvaerner’s Stord yard in Norway.

It is no coincidence that Statoil held the naming ceremony for the giant spar platform on International Women’s Day.

The Luva field was renamed on March 8, 2012, by then minister of Oil and Energy in Norway, Ola Borten Moe after Aasta Hansteen, a Norwegian painter, writer, and early feminist.

Exactly six years later, the finished platform was officially named in Digernessundet at Stord.

Statoil chose the date since Hansteen was a vocal critic of the perception of women during her time.

According to Statoil, in Norway, Hansteen achieved many ‘firsts,’ holding the distinction of being Kristiania’s first educated female portrait painter, the first Norwegian woman to deliver public lectures, the first woman to publish in the Nynorsk language, and a pioneer of the Norwegian women’s movement.

The 24,000-tonne topside for the Aasta Hansteen platform was towed from Ølensvåg to Stord on the west coast of Norway in November 2017 and floated it over the 46,000-tonne floating vertical hull a month later. The 200-meter-long substructure was upended in July.

The completed platform will be towed in the spring of 2018 to the Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea. Kvaerner will also assist Statoil with offshore hook-up and preparations for production.

The gas discovery is situated in the Vøring area, 300 kilometers from land. The rich gas will be exported through the Polarled flowline to Nyhamna, and condensate will be stored and offloaded offshore.

The Aasta Hansteen platform will be Norway’s first spar platform in production. Spar is a cylindrical, partially submerged offshore drilling and production platform that is particularly well adapted to deepwater.

The cylindrical substructure will be floating 160 meters below the surface and be anchored with fiber rope and chain fastened to anchors on the seabed at around 1,260 meters water depth.

Statoil is the operator of the field with Wintershall, OMV, and ConocoPhillips as partners.

Watch a time lapse video of the spar platform coming together below:

Offshore Energy Today Staff