DeepOcean has been awarded a contract for provision of engineering, procurement, removal and disposal (EPRD) of Varg subsea facilities, offshore Norway, by Repsol.

Varg field is located in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. Repsol, the operator of the field with 65% interest, recently applied to authorities to plug eight wells and shut down the Varg field as it was no longer considered profitable.

DeepOcean said on Thursday that its scope of work covers subsea pre-decom survey, recovery of FPSO mooring lines, anchor piles, risers, midwater-arch buoy and subsea structures as well as onshore disposal and recycling of the recovered items.

Repsol told Offshore Energy Today in February that the sail away for Teekay’s FPSO Petrojarl Varg was planned for August 1, 2016.

Rolf Ivar Sørdal, DeepOcean’s Commercial Director for Subsea Services in the Greater North Sea, said: “DeepOcean already has an in-depth knowledge of Repsol’s assets in the North Sea, through our long term relationship on maintaining the integrity of their assets.

Sørdal also added: “Further, the new construction vessel Edda Freya, arriving in our fleet in 2Q16 has been specially designed for multiple types of subsea operations, and hence prove very cost efficient for subject scope.”

The Varg field was developed at a depth of 84 meters with a wellhead platform, Varg A, and a production ship, Teekay’s Petrojarl Varg FPSO, with integrated oil storage. These were linked together with a 1200-metre production and injection pipeline and a control umbilical. The oil was exported via shuttle tankers. The production started in December 1998.