The construction of utilities and living quarters topside has started for the offshore platform, which will be located at the Statoil-operated Johan Sverdrup field, offshore Norway.

Norwegian construction company Kvaerner said the first steel plates for the utility and living quarters (ULQ) topside for the Johan Sverdrup field were cut on Thursday.

Norway’s minister of petroleum and energy Tord Lien and apprentice Jens Erik Eriksen in Kværner marked the construction start in Stord, north of Stavanger.

Kvaerner, together with KBR, in June 2015 secured the contract for the complete delivery of the utility and living quarter (ULQ) topside. The platform also includes the advanced control room and the sental systems all installations on the field. Kværner’s sub-supplier Apply Leirvik will construct the accommodation module for the living quarters platform, which will, according to Statoil, be the biggest on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS).

Jackets too

In addition, Kvaerner is responsible for complete deliveries of three of the four steel jacket substructures for this phase of the Johan Sverdrup development.

The main scope of the steel jackets will be constructed at Kvaerner’s specialised facility in Verdal, Norway. For the complete delivery of the 19 000 tonnes topside, Kvaerner says that a large portion of the work will be executed at the company’s facility at Stord, while the construction of the living quarter will be executed by Kvaerner and KBR’s subcontractor Apply at Stord and in Gothenburg, Sweden.

President and CEO of Kvaerner Jan Arve Haugan has highlighted the company’s efforts reduce cost and increase productivity in a highly competitive market.

He said: “We have since the project started determinedly worked to implement further improvements for productivity and cost level. This means that we in Norway have improved our competitiveness for even more parts of the platform work.

“For Kvaerner, this results in an increase of more than 200 man years involved in the work with the topside and steel jackets. At peak, around 2 000 employees will be involved in Kvaerner’s Johan Sverdrup deliveries. This will at the same time result in positive effects for our subcontractors in Norway,” Haugan said.

While Kvaerner boasts the Norwegian yards’ competitiveness, it’s worth noting that the other modules for the utility and living quarters platform will be constructed at the Energomontaz Polnoc Gdynia (EPG), Mostostal Pomorze Gdansk (MPG), Mostostal Chojnice and Crist Offshore in Poland, as well as the one previously mentioned, in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Detailed engineering is performed at KBR’s office in Leatherhead, London, and at Apply Leirvik on Stord. The fabrication work was also kicked off today at two of the yards in Poland and at Apply Leirvik’s yard.

Complex puzzle

Kjetel Digre, Statoil’s project director for Johan Sverdrup said the project he describes as “the biggest industrial project in modern times in Norway” is growing every day.

He said: “We are 14,000 people working on the project every day in 2016, and together we will perform 100 million working hours. We depend on everyone delivering as required, and all pieces of the puzzle falling into place at the right time and with the right quality. Our top priority is a safe working environment. We do not want any injuries among personnel working for the Johan Sverdrup project.”

The utility and living quarters platform will accommodate the crew working on the Johan Sverdrup field during the field life of 50 years. The platform will have the largest living quarters on the NCS with a capacity of 560 people. The platform will also accommodate the field’s control and emergency centre, and some utility systems covering the whole field centre.

The platform will be completed in the first quarter of 2019, before it is installed on the Johan Sverdrup field by use of the world’s largest heavy-lift vessel, the Pioneering Spirit.

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