Uk headquartered engineering firm Wood said on Monday it has secured a contract from Norwegian energy firm Equinor to deliver front-end engineering design (FEED) services for brownfield modifications to the Grane offshore facility in Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
The scope of the FEED includes all topsides modifications required on the facility to prepare for the subsea tie-back from the Grane Area Northern Development (GRAND) project. The FEED for GRAND is scheduled for completion by end of 2019.
The contract was awarded following concept study work for the GRAND project and includes an option for the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) phase.
The Grane oil field has been developed with an integrated accommodation, processing and drilling platform with a fixed steel frame construction resting on the sea bed.
The platform is located around 185 kilometers west of Haugesund, where sea depth is 127 meters.
The field was discovered by Hydro in 1991. When the Grane field came on stream in September 2003, its recoverable reserves were estimated to total 700 million barrels of oil.
Grane is the first field on the Norwegian continental shelf to produce heavy crude oil. This oil differs from other types in that it is found in younger geological formations than what is usual on the continental shelf, namely in sandstone from the Tertiary period, deposited around 60 million years ago.
The oil is transported through a 212 kilometer long pipeline to Equinor's Sture terminal in Øygarden, where it is stored in large rock caverns in the mountainside prior to shipment to the world market.