Prysmian’s cable-making ops at full blast for two big North Sea oil & gas projects

Italy-headquartered cable systems giant Prysmian is hard at work at its Norwegian factory to provide cables for two oil and gas development projects in the North Sea, off the coast of Norway. Thanks to these projects, the Italian player’s headcount has gone up.

According to Norway’s Aker BP, Prysmian’s cable delivery activities are in full swing in Drammen. These cables are destined for the Norwegian oil and gas player’s Valhall PWP-Fenris and Yggdrasil projects in the North Sea on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS).

“Our projects secure activity, develop competence, and prepare the industry for a future in new value chains. At Prysmian, they have increased staffing by 30 percent through deliveries to Valhall PWP-Fenris and Yggdrasil,” highlighted Aker BP.

The Italian cable maker is one of over 250 suppliers in Norway, hired to deliver their scope of work directly to Aker BP’s ongoing project portfolio. The start of construction activities on Yggdrasil and Valhall PWP-Fenris occurred in September 2023 with the cutting ceremony for the first steel plates for the Hugin A and Valhall PWP platforms at Aker Solutions’ Stord yard.

This was enabled by a deal valued at almost NOK 50 billion ($4.7 billion), which the company and its alliance partners signed in December 2023 with  Aker BP. Drydocks World completed the Hugin A and Valhall PWP jacket pile clusters for the North Sea project duo in September 2024.

The first cut for the utilities module of the new Valhall field center, production, and wellhead platform (PWP) was done in Stavanger by Worley Rosenberg in January 2024. The Fenris jacket and pre-drill module (PDM) began its journey to the Valhall field from the yard in Verdal months later, with three different tugboats maneuvering the giant barge out of the harbor.

Following its arrival at the Fenris offshore field, Heerema Marine Contractors’ Sleipnir heavy lift vessel installed the jacket on the seabed. Located in the Southern North Sea, the Valhall PWP-Fenris project covers a new centrally located production and wellhead platform linked to the Valhall field center by a bridge and an unstaffed installation at Fenris that will be tied back to the field through pipelines on the seabed.

The Valhall PWP-Fenris development, which will use the existing power from shore system with minimal emissions estimated at less than 1 kg CO2/boe, aims to extend the life of the Valhall field for another 40 years. The field has been on stream since 1982. The 16,000-tonne Valhall PWP production platform would be assembled at Stord and the 9,500-tonne steel jacket would be delivered from Verdal. 

Furthermore, Aker BP disclosed in June 2024 that six offshore campaigns would be carried out to install almost 100 km of pipelines over the summer at its Fenris 14” production and 4.5” MEG pipeline development project in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, securing a lifetime extension for Valhall past 2028.

Once a 2-kilometer-long cooling bundle for the Fenris field was loaded out, the long pipeline was towed to sea. Afterward, the partners in Aker BP’s Subsea Alliance, consisting of Aker Solutions and Subsea7, transported it from Scotland to the field’s location in the Valhall area and started installing the bundle as the first of five planned to be put in place.

Aker BP’s Yggdrasil, estimated at NOK 115 billion or over $10.3 billion, consists of the Hugin, Fulla, and Munin license groups between Alvheim and Oseberg in the North Sea, containing gross resources of over 700 million barrels of oil equivalent. The new infrastructure will entail three platforms, nine subsea templates, new pipelines for oil and gas export, and power from shore.

The entire Yggdrasil area will be remotely operated from an integrated operations center and control room onshore in Stavanger. Yggdrasil’s Hugin A, which is expected to be the largest topside ever assembled in the Stord yard area, consists of a 28-tonne production platform and a 20,500-tonne steel jacket that will be delivered from Aker Solutions’ yard in Verdal.

The Yggdrasil field development also encompasses an unmanned platform, Hugin B, which will be delivered from Verdal and tied back to Hugin A. While Aibel will deliver the topside for Munin, Aker Solutions’ scope entails considerable subsea and modification deliveries to the Yggdrasil fields. 

Multiconsult will handle all necessary onshore civil engineering for the power from shore system. While Aker BP’s partners in the Yggdrasil area are Equinor and PGNIG Upstream Norway, Pandion Energy is the Norwegian player’s partner in Valhall and PGNiG Upstream Norway is the firm’s partner in Fenris, which is 50 kilometers away.

Prysmian in Drammen is delivering cables to Aker BP-operated developments

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