Three modules weighing 1,200 tonnes in total were lifted on board the Oseberg Øst platform in the North Sea on Monday night. The modules are part of an upgrade which will help in extracting 40 million new barrels of oil from the field.
Only seven hours elapsed from when the lifting vessel with its three modules arrived at Oseberg Øst on Monday evening until the the whole operation was successfully completed. The operation was undertaken by Saipem 7000, the world's biggest semi-submersible lifting vessel.
"The lifting operation went exactly according to plan and the modules landed supersoftly on the platform," says Halldor Fottland, who was in charge of the operation.
The biggest of the modules is a 960-tonne mud-treatment module to be used during the coming drilling campaign on the field. The other modules are a turbine-driven power generator and a transformer.
During coming months the new systems will be connected and tested prior to the hand-over to the operative organization at the turn of the year.
The equipment now placed on Oseberg Øst will help in extracting 40 million new barrels of oil from the field. After modifications costing some NOK 800 million, the platform will be able to carry out drilling operations without using support vessels with mud-treatment equipment.
Inclusive of the drilling campaign that starts this winter, the upgrading of Oseberg Øst will cost around NOK 2.1 billion.