Aker Solutions to deliver umbilicals to CNOOC’s Liuhua oil fields

Norwegian oil services company Aker Solutions has won orders valued at more than NOK 350 million ($41.55 million) to deliver power umbilical systems to the Liuhua oil fields in the South China Sea, off Hong Kong.

Aker Solutions said on Wednesday that the contract was awarded by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s (CNOOC).

The work scope includes more than 35 kilometers of dynamic and static power umbilicals for the Liuhua 16-2, 20-2, and 21-2 fields, linking the subsea development to a new floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit.

Luis Araujo, CEO of Aker Solutions, said: “We are honored to work with CNOOC again to demonstrate our capabilities in China. Liuhua is an important project and we look forward to providing umbilicals which meet its long-distance power transmission requirements.”

Power umbilical systems are bundled cable and fiber optic systems providing distribution of power, control and communication between subsea equipment on the seafloor and platforms or floating production facilities.

According to the company, the static section of the Liuhua 16-2 umbilical will be engineered using Aker Solutions’ advanced manufacturing process called OsciLay.

Greg Ross, Aker Solutions’ vice president of subsea sales in Asia Pacific, added: “OsciLay is a unique manufacturing method which addresses challenges of more extreme tension loads during installation, eliminating splicing of cables due to manufacturing weight limitations. OsciLay allows us to manufacture extremely long or heavy power umbilicals which will otherwise be limited using conventional manufacturing approaches.”

Aker Solutions’ team in Malaysia will lead the engineering work, while production and manufacturing will take place at the umbilical production facility in Mobile, Alabama, in the United States.

The order will be booked in the third quarter of 2018. The delivery to the Liuhua 16-2 and 20-2 fields is set for the end of 2019 while the Liuhua 21-2 delivery is set for 2020.

Aker Solutions first worked on a subsea project with CNOOC in 2010 and has since provided subsea production systems for the Liuhua 19-5 and Yacheng 13-4 gas fields.