Partner Article

North Sea platform project wins top award

A multi-million pound North Sea platform project has won a top award from the oil and gas industry.

The Forties Alpha Satellite Platform – a project by Apache Corporation, a leading oil and gas exploration and production company with worldwide operations, and Offshore Group Newcastle (OGN), one of the UK’s leading EPC service providers to the offshore oil and gas and offshore wind energy sectors – has been awarded the Oil and Gas UK Business Efficiency Award.

The FASP project is the first central North Sea platform to be built at a single construction yard in the UK for at least 25 years.

First oil from the new Forties Alpha Satellite Platform (FASP) is expected to come on stream in the next few months and has the capacity to produce up to 25,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

Oil and Gas business leaders from around the UK attended the showcase Oil and Gas UK Awards dinner at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre.

The Business Efficiency award recognises efficiency, sustainability and innovation in delivering improved operational performance, streamlining and cost-saving.

Apache North Sea’s projects group manager Mark Richardson, said: “We are delighted to have been honoured to win such a prestigious award.

“The project team from Apache and OGN have worked tirelessly over the past three years to make this project a reality.

“The installation of the Forties Alpha Satellite Platform represents a major milestone for Apache’s significant investment programme.

“I’m especially proud that Apache has installed this new platform at the same time that Forties was originally scheduled to commence decommissioning.”

The contract for the design and build of the platform was awarded to OGN in 2010 and the project, from concept to completion, required more than three million man hours of work, providing 2,000 jobs at OGN’s Hadrian Yard at Wallsend and a further estimated 5,000 jobs throughout the British supply chain.

The perception that the UK no longer has the capacity and skills to take on projects of this size and scale has been comprehensively disproved by OGN, which was established only four years ago when it acquired Hadrian Yard and invested £25m in the region.

Dennis Clark, chairman of OGN Group, said: “This is a great testimony to the manufacturing capabilities and skills of the oil and gas supply chain in the North East and to Apache’s commitment to building locally within the UK.

“It also shows that the North East region’s track record of engineering and fabrication could have a bright future at the heart of a thriving offshore energy sector.

“I congratulate our project teams on a truly excellent job which speaks volumes for their talents and commitment.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .