Delayed Johan Castberg FPSO almost ready for journey to Norway

Equinor’s floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for the Johan Castberg project, located in the Barents Sea, has left the dock at a shipyard in Singapore, in preparation for its journey to Norway next month.

As reported by Equinor this week, the FPSO for the Johan Castberg field left the dock at Sembcorp Marine in Singapore on Wednesday. The ship is 313 metres long and 55 metres wide – roughly the size of three football fields.

According to Equinor, the FPSO will start its 12,500 nautical mile-long journey to Norway onboard the semi-submersible heavy-lift vessel Boka Vanguard from Boskalis in the middle of February 2022.

A spokesperson for Equinor told Offshore Energy that the vessel’s journey from Singapore to Norway will last about 50 days.

Sembcorp Marine’s scope of work on the project included the hull and living quarters construction along with the installation of the turret supplied by Equinor.

During construction, the project has experienced delays due to issues with the quality of welding and further delays and cost overruns due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the construction of the FPSO for the project.

Specifically, the yard in Singapore has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which reduced the access to manpower amid entry restrictions. As a result, the FPSO hull transportation schedule was pushed to the first quarter of 2022 instead of initial plans for it to be transported in late 2021.

As confirmed by Equinor’s spokesperson, once the FPSO arrives in Norway, Equinor will perform the integration and commissioning process at Aker Solutions’ yard at Stord. Before its merger with Aker Solutions in late 2020, Kvaerner was awarded a contract in February 2018 to deliver topside modules and hook-up and integration of those modules with the Johan Castberg hull. The scope includes the fabrication of the topside modules with the majority of modules to be delivered by Norwegian yards.

It is expected that the Johan Castberg vessel will leave the yard in 2024 for a planned production start in late 2024. Namely, contrary to previous plans when the project start-up was first expected during 2022 and then in 2023, the project start-up is now scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024.

Located in the Barents Sea, the Equinor-operated Johan Castberg field lies 240 kilometres northwest of Hammerfest. It will be developed using the FPSO and will include additional subsea solutions along with 18 horizontal production wells and 12 injection wells. The field’s proven volumes are estimated between 400 and 650 million barrels of oil.