The Navion Saga storage ship which has been in place on the Statoil-operated Yme field in the North Sea during the entire production period left the field on 30 April with its final cargo .
The journey with cargo number 66 went as usual to the Mongstad refinery near Bergen. Navion Saga has stored oil on the field since production started in February 1996. Normal procedure has been to load oil onto shuttle tankers.
Yme ceased production on 15 April. Plugging of wells and cleansing pipelines between the Maersk Giant production jack-up and the subsea facilities has now been completed. The Normand Mjolne ship which has remotely controlled subsea vessels (ROV) on board disconnected pipelines and risers last week and the Maersk contractor company is making preparations for the production rig to leave the field. This is due to take place in the middle of May.
The intervention vessel Viking Poseidon arrived at the field today 2 May to prepare for plugging and removal work on the seabed. This work will be done by Maersk Jutlander which is expected to be in place in the middle of May.
According to Sissel Moldskred, head of production, the completion operations are going better than expected, thanks to good planning and good collaboration between the companies involved.