Topsides were lifted into place on the 9150-tonne steel jacket on the Valemon field in the Norwegian North Sea on 28 July, operator Statoil announced.
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| Statoil's Valemon. Photo from Statoil's Andre Osmundsen. |
The crane vessel Saipem 7000 took two hours to lift the 9750-tone topside module. After the module was lifted into place, the flare boom was installed.
The topsides set sail in June from the Geoje yard in South Korea to Norway on the heavy transport vessel, Dockwise Triumph. The trip took 40 days to complete.
Statoil contracted Samsung Heavy Industries in May 2011 to build the topsides, a first for Statoil.
The 9150-tonne steel jacket was built by Heerema Vlissingen, a unit of the Heerema Fabrication Group, and installed in 135m water depth at the field on 18 June 2012 with the deepwater construction vessel Thialf.
Well Operations
In the coming months, Statoil says wells will be hooked up with production facilities on board, seawater pumps will be installed, and electricity, water and pipelines will be connected. Well operations will resume in mid-October.
According to Statoil’s plan, three wells will be producing when the field comes on stream at the end of 2014. Drilling on the field is planned to continue until 2017.
Valemon will use existing installations and pipelines for gas and condensate export. The gas from Valemon will be transported through the existing pipeline between Huldra to Heimdal.
The condensate will be piped to Kvitebjorn for stabilization and from there, to the Mongstad refinery near Bergen.
The Valemon field
The Valemon field is one of Statoil’s stand-alone development projects on the Norwegian continental shelf. It contains approximately 192MMboe and will be produced on a separate platform.
Valemon is a high-pressure, high-temperature gas and condensate field was discovered in 1985, 160km west of Bergen, about 12km west of the Kvitebjørn installation and is planned to come on stream 4Q 2014.
The Valemon development is currently one of the largest industrial projects in Norway. The recoverable reserves are estimated at 206MMboed, including 26 billion cu m of gas, 5MMcu m of condensate, and 1MMcu m of natural gas liquids.
Development plans include an unmanned fixed steel platform with separation facilities for gas, condensate and water.
The project is operated by Statoil (64.275%). The company’s partners include Petoro (30%), Enterprise Oil (3.225%) and Total (2.5%).
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