Spanish yard set to deliver Johan Sverdrup module

Spanish state-owned shipbuilding company Navantia has completed and is ready to deliver a platform topside module built for the Equinor-operated Johan Sverdrup field located offshore Norway.

Aibel in December 2018 awarded a contract to Navantia for the construction of an HVDC substation module for the Johan Sverdrup phase 2 project.

Aibel is in charge of building the P2 platform topsides for the Johan Sverdrup field so it awarded the contract to Navantia to build one of the three modules in which the topside section of the platform was divided.

The approx. 4000 t heavy module was built at the Navantia Puerto Real yard. The first steel for the module was cut in early August 2019.

Following 14 months of intense work, Navantia said in an update on Wednesday it will deliver the HVDC module to Equinor and Aibel on Monday, 26 October 2020.

The delivery ceremony will be held at the dock of the Puerto Real shipyard and the module will head to its destination the following day.

Johan Sverdrup is the biggest field development on the Norwegian continental shelf since the 1980s.

The plan for development and operation (PDO) of the second phase of the field development was formally approved by Norwegian authorities on 15 May 2019.

The construction of the field’s second processing platform started on the same day at Aibel’s yard in Haugesund.

The second processing platform (P2) will extend production capacity on the field from 440,000 to 660,000 barrels of oil per day after startup, which is planned for 2022.

The second development phase has a capital expenditure of NOK 41 billion. In addition to the construction of a new processing platform, the development also includes modifications of the riser platform, five subsea systems, and preparations for power supply from shore to the Utsira High in 2022.

The Johan Sverdrup field is powered from shore, placing it among the oil and gas fields with the lowest CO2 emissions in the world.

In the second phase, the field will also supply shore power to other fields on the Utsira High, including the Edvard Grieg, Gina Krog and Ivar Aasen fields.

Emission reductions from Johan Sverdrup alone are estimated at more than 620,000 tonnes of CO2 on average per year, corresponding to annual emissions from 310,000 private cars.