Oil and gas producer Ithaca Energy has awarded Bureau Veritas (BV) a three-year contract to deliver verification - including remote - certification and classification services, and environmental verification and audit services for six assets in the UK North Sea.
BV said Thursday it would deploy its digitalized delivery model BV Compliance for Ithaca to extend the boundaries of remote verification while reducing the total cost of asset operational ownership.
The six assets covered by the deal comprise of the Captain WPP/BLP (wellhead protector platform/bridge linked platform) and the Captain FPSO vessel in the Captain field, the Alba North Platform, and a floating storage unit in the Alba field, the normally unmanned installation in the Erskine field and the FPF1 floating production facility in the Greater Stella Area. The Captain field is located in the Outer Moray Firth, with the other fields located in the Central North Sea.
The work scope for BV begins in January 2022 and is for three years – with the potential for a two-year extension.
BV is not new to some of the assets covered by the agreement, as it has been providing a range of independent verification, certification, classification, and environmental services for the assets in the Captain, Alba and Erskine fields for six years under previous asset owners – an arrangement which has continued following Ithaca’s acquisition of the assets in 2019. The Greater Stella FPF1 facility is the latest addition to the portfolio of assets being supported by BV.
According to BV, a key focus of the contract will be a reduction in the total cost of ownership for asset operations due to increased remote working opportunities. This will be achieved through a digitalized delivery model using BV’s innovative cloud-based collaborative software tool BV Compliance, BV said.
BV says its tool streamlines planning, administration, project management, and reporting to deliver a centralized live overview of the initial and ongoing assessment of safety, and environmental and critical elements (SECE) suitability.
"The integration of the software with Ithaca’s latest control system technology will provide the opportunity to demonstrate the significant performance possibilities for remote verification in the offshore industry globally and increase operational efficiencies," BV said.
Paul Shrieve, Vice-President Global Services at Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore, said BV was confident that offshore facilities will widen the scope of remote verification services more than ever before – "to be as good as or even better than physical inspection on the platform."
"From an industry perspective, we expect that these developments will lead to a significant increase in remote witness activities around the world," he said.
“We look forward to working with Ithaca Energy to explore and develop a verification service fit for the fast-changing offshore E&P environment, accelerated through the energy transition, of offshore manning optimization and digitization that delivers value through a focus on total cost of ownership.”