Aker BP and Total charter support vessels

Aker BP has chartered 2016-built Stril Mar for the duration of the drilling programme in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. The UT776 WP-design PSV will provide supplies to an offshore drilling rig for around four months starting in April 2021.

Simon Møkster said Aker BP chartered the 91-m, DNV GL-class PSV under a strategic partnership agreement between the two companies. Stril Mar has previously worked for Aker BP under this three-year frame agreement, which was signed in March 2019. Simon Møkster said it “looks forward to continuing the PSV services for Aker BP”.

Aker BP is a significant oil and gas producer on the Norwegian continental shelf. It operates production facilities on the Valhall, Ula, Ivar Aasen, Alvheim and Skarv fields. It also holds an 11.57% share of the giant Johan Sverdrup field, which came on stream in 2019.

Its offshore drilling is mostly focused around these mature areas in the North Sea with a mixture of development, appraisal and exploration operations.

Aker BP has several satellite fields to drill and develop around its main production hubs. It also plans to develop the NOAKA area (between Alvheim and Oseberg field centres), which holds 325M barrels of oil-equivalent resources.

It said the final investment decision for the NOAKA area development could be in 2022, with first oil expected in 2027.

Elsewhere in the North Sea, Total Exploration & Production has contracted EDT Shipmanagement to provide walk-to-work services for maintenance on gas production platforms in the Netherlands.

Total will use multipurpose support vessel EDT Protea with a Safeway Seagull motion-compensated gangway for its 2021 offshore maintenance programme. The 1991-built vessel is owned by Navibay Shipping Co and managed by EDT. It has dynamic positioning (DP) classed as DP3 and deck cranes.

This contract will commence in March 2021 and will run in periods throughout 2021. Total has options to extend this contract for both 2022 and 2023.

Author Martyn Wingrove worked on Total gas field appraisal and exploration drilling in the Netherlands from 1995 to 1997.

Vessel operations, market forces and contract opportunities will be discussed during Riviera’s Annual Offshore Support Journal Virtual Conference Week - 23-25 March 2021 - use this link to access more details and register for these events