By Stephen
Treloar
Kvaerner ASA (KVAER), a
Norwegian oil platform builder controlled by billionaire Kjell Inge Roekke, won
a 3 billion-krone ($490 million) contract to supply two platforms structures
for Statoil ASA (STL)’s
Johan Sverdrup find.
Kvaerner signed a letter of
intent for the delivery of two steel jackets for the field in the North Sea and
entered a frame agreement for further units up until 2020, the Oslo-based
company said in a statement today.
Sverdrup “is an industrial
development with a 50-year perspective,” Statoil Chief Executive OfficerHelge Lund said in the statement. “This letter of
intent signifies a fresh step forward in planning the first phase of Johan
Sverdrup.”
The discovery of Sverdrup in
two parts by Lundin Petroleum AB (LUPE) and Statoil ASA in 2010 and 2011
renewed explorers’ interest in Norway after a decade of falling oil production.
The field, which holds 1.8 billion to 2.9 billion barrels of oil equivalent,
will bolster the order books of suppliers even as oil and gas investments in
the country decline.
The planned development of the
discovery was put in danger this year amid wrangling in parliament over
electrification of surrounding fields on the Utsira High area. The government
and the opposition later reached an accord to start electrification of three
North Sea oil fields by 2022 to avoid potential delays to the country’s biggest
offshore development in decades.
“This agreement also shows that
it was extremely important to avoid a solution in parliament about land-based
power to the Utsira High that would have resulted in delays of Sverdrup’s first
construction phase,” Oil & Energy Minister Tord Lien said in a statement.
Aker Solutions ASA (AKSO),
another company controlled by Roekke’s Aker ASA, last year won a framework
contract on engineering design from Statoil on Sverdrup. The Roekke-controlled
explorerDet
Norske Oljeselskap ASA (DETNOR) also owns part of Sverdrup.
Culled from http://www.bloomberg.com/
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