Technip wins £500m BP contract to work west of Shetland

FRENCH oil services company Technip yesterday landed a £500 million contract from BP to support its drilling operations off the west coast of Shetland.

Technip’s Aberdeen office will co-ordinate the “Quad 204” project, which was given the go-ahead by the UK government in July, while its factory at Evanton, in Ross-shire, will make 15 steel pipelines for the contract. The contract is the largest won by the firm in British waters.

Under the deal, BP’s Schiehallion platform will be replaced with a purpose-built floating production and storage facility, with further pipelines being installed under the sea.

The major re-development project will allow a further 450 million barrels of oil to be recovered from the Schiehallion and Loyal fields and extend their production through to 2035.

Trevor Garlick, regional president BP North Sea, said: “We are investing in North Sea assets with growth potential.

“The re-development of the Schiehallion and Loyal fields are a key part of this.

“We look forward to working with Technip UK to deliver what is one of the UK’s largest ever subsea installation contracts.”

Work on the contract is expected to begin next year. BP’s partners on the project are Hess, Murphy Petroleum, OMV, Shell and StatOil.

Last year Technip bought Aberdeen-based subsea cable laying business Subocean out of administration for £10m, saving about 300 jobs. A further 50 staff had been made redundant when the company slipped into the hands of administrators. The French company had already identified Aberdeen as the base for its offshore wind power business.

Technip has also teamed up with Spanish utilities giant Iberdrola, which owns ScottishPower, to bid for wind farm licences off the coast of France.

News of the BP contract is the latest boost for Scotland’s oil and gas sector. The seas to the west of Shetland have been labelled as the “final frontier” for British oil and gas exploration.

BP last week received the green light from the UK government to drill the North Uist exploration well in deep water off the north-west coast of Shetland, sparking condemnation from environmental groups, which fear a repeat of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Aberdeen-based oil explorer Faroe Petroleum – one of BP’s partners on the North Uist well alongside Cieco, Idemitsu and Nexen – yesterday revealed drilling work on the well had begun using the Stena Carron rig.

Faroe said the North Uist prospect is located near to Chevron’s Rosebank oil discovery.