Houma 985.223.1966 Lafayette 337.267.3100 Houston 713.821.0050
CORTEC manufactures flow line equipment
designed and engineered to meet your needs.
CORTEC is a leading manufacturer of high quality valves
and flow line equipment for production, drilling and service
applications in the global oil and gas industry. Main product
lines include Production and Extreme Service Chokes,
Compact Ball and Check Valves, Diverter Valves, Valve
Manifold Assemblies and an extensive range of Flow Line
Components. CORTEC is an American manufacturing
company that is API 6A licensed and ISO 9001 registered.
www.uscortec.com
COR TEC proudly designs, manufactures, assembles, and tests all products in the USA.
AMERICAN MADE
100%USA Manufactured &Tested
The Standard
in Non-Standard Valve Production
Production & Extreme Service Chokes | Compact Ball & Check Valves
Flow Line Accessories and Manifold Assemblies
TOP 5 PROJECTS
sible to incorporate new discoveries in the
future, which is very likely given Statoil’s
penchant for fast-tracking developments using existing infrastructure.
Situated in production license P 025, the
Gudrun feld is located about 34 mi ( 55 km)
north of the Sleipner installations in a water
depth of 357 ft (109 m). Oil and gas is sent to
the Sleipner platform, where it is processed
before the oil is sent on to Kårstø and the
gas to Europe, all through existing pipelines
tied in to Sleipner. Sleipner A will also supply
power to the Gudrun platform.
“This allowed us to beneft from previous
investments made on the Norwegian shelf,”
Ovrum explained. “The Gudrun concept is
a win-win situation. By using existing infrastructure, the Gudrun development costs
less and Sleipner gains an extra customer.
Gudrun’s start-up came at the perfect time.”
Modifcations were carried out on Sleipner
and at Kårstø as part of the Gudrun project.
Gudrun is operated from Statoil’s offces
at Vestre Svanholmen in Sandnes, Norway,
and is the frst new feld Statoil operates
from the Stavanger region since Sleipner in
1993. Statoil has a 46.8% stake, Marathon Oil
Corp. holds 28.2% and GDF Suez SA holds 25%.
Project progress
The feld was developed with a fxed processing platform supported by a 7,400 ton
( 6,713 metric ton) steel jacket, which was
built at Kvaerner Verdal. The living quarters
and helideck were constructed by Apply
Leirvik at Stord. The contract included the
delivery of a new living quarters module and
a capacity of 40 single cabins, an administration center, central control room, and all other necessary facilities required for operation
of an offshore camp. The living quarters and
helideck were constructed in aluminum,
and the design of the structure had to be
low in weight with minimum maintenance in
operation, and environmentally friendly.
In June 2010, Statoil awarded Aibel a
contract to engineer and construct the platform deck, processing facility and to mate
the deck with the steel jacket. The topsides
were built with a process facility for partial
treatment of oil and gas. Aker received a
contract to construct the steel jacket, and
Saipem received a contract for transport
and installation of the platform jacket and
topside facilities in June 2010. The company used its semisubmersible crane vessel
S7000 to carry out the installation work.
Statoil laid 70 mi (112 km) of pipeline, as
well as a 34-mi (55-km) cable on the seabed
between Gudrun and Sleipner for electricity.
“On a scale of one to 10, this project
is a nine,” Construction Manager Askild
Mokleiv said, pointing to the large number
of people involved and all the supervision of
various yards and subcontractors required.
The Gudrun structure is a cut-down ver-
sion of earlier development concepts, and
lacks a drilling derrick, noted Mokleiv. Ver-
tical columns on the jacket mean a rig can
slide next to the platform and extend its der-
rick over the topside well slots.
“Dry wellheads are very important in a
high-pressure and temperature feld like
this,” explained principal engineer Petter
Gundersen at the Norwegian Petroleum Di-
rectorate. Gudrun could just as easily have
been a subsea project, he notes, but the
wellheads would then have been wet with
interventions and workovers being more ex-
pensive and complex. By predrilling wells,
production can start earlier, he added.
Gudrun was originally expected to stay
onstream until 2016, but its producing life
has now been extended by four years – partly because of the decision to develop Gina
Krog. •
