Haugesund mayor Arne-Christian Mohn recently started the steel cutting machine at Aibel’s yard in Haugesund, Norway, marking the start of construction of the Johan Sverdrup drilling platform. “Aibel won the contract for the construction of the drilling platform about one year ago. Following an extensive planning and engineering process it feels good to start the construction of the first of four topside structures for the Johan Sverdrup project”, says Kjetel Digre, Statoil’s senior vice president for the Johan Sverdrup project.
The construction contract for the Johan Sverdrup drilling platform was awarded to Aibel in February 2015. The topside engineering work is being performed in Aibel’s Asker office, where also Statoil’s project team is located. The 22 500-tonne topsides will consist of three modules, one of which will be built at the yard in Haugesund, one at the Deeline yard in Thailand, and one at Nymo’s yard in Grimstad. The modules will be assembled in Haugesund in the autumn of 2017, before the platform is installed on the field in 2018.