Savings of NOK 400 million have been made by Statoil over three years through more efficient working in the Tampen area together with contractor Aker Kværner Offshore Partner (AKOP).
All maintenance and modification (M&M) work on production licences operated by the group in this part of the North Sea has been allocated to AKOP under a single contract.
Ranked as one of the biggest M&M jobs on the Norwegian continental shelf, it was made possible in 2003 when Statoil became operator for all the installations in the Tampen area.
The collaboration with AKOP embraces nine platforms on the Statfjord, Gullfaks, Snorre and Visund fields.
“When we became operator for all these installations, we could think like a single licence,” explains Lars Christian Bacher, senior vice president for the Tampen area.
“The result is a win-win position, and a good mode of working both for the contractor and for the individual licensees in this part of the NCS.”
Since it was placed in 2002, the contract with AKOP has been worth more than NOK 3 billion.
Because the number of working hours is unchanged, the efficiency improvements have meant more maintenance for the same amount of time.
This form of collaboration gave Statoil an efficiency gain of more than 10 per cent in 2005 alone when compared with the reference year of 2003.
AKOP benefits from using its best expertise and thereby enhancing efficiency because that boosts its profit margin, Mr Bacher explains.
The contract has a volume of roughly NOK 1 billion per year. So more efficient working is down to the contractor’s planning and deployment of the right engineers to their specialities.
Although several of the fields involved have been on stream for more than 20 years, Statoil has long-term plans for the whole area.
This calls for constant maintenance and upgrading of the equipment and facilities on the various installations.