Aker Secures FEED Study for Drilling Upgrade

30 September 2009 (Last Updated September 30th, 2009 18:30)

Aker Solutions has been awarded an $8.7m (NKr50m) front-end engineering design (FEED) study from StatoilHydro for upgrading the Gullfaks A drilling facilities. The FEED study includes new equipment to increase drilling capacity and modifications of existing installations offshore to ext

Aker Solutions has been awarded an $8.7m (NKr50m) front-end engineering design (FEED) study from StatoilHydro for upgrading the Gullfaks A drilling facilities.

The FEED study includes new equipment to increase drilling capacity and modifications of existing installations offshore to extend the productive lifetime of Gullfaks A.

The study will consider the potential to increase the drilling capacity to 10km, including heavy lifting to erect a new derrick.

The FEED will also involve improvement of environment, health and safety (HSE) equipment to be more compatible for the extended longitude.

Contract work will begin immediately and the study is expected to be complete in April 2010.

The study will be carried out by the company's drilling equipment business centre in Kristiansand along with its Bergen-based hub of maintenance and modification expertise.

The contract party is Aker Solutions' subsidiary Aker Offshore Partner AS.