Equinor has awarded contracts valued at approximately NOK 6 billion ($613 million) for four subsea projects as part of its first planned wave of subsea developments on the Norwegian continental shelf.

The coordinated contracting approach aims to accelerate project delivery, lower costs and improve efficiency across future subsea developments.

The projects are part of Equinor’s strategy to unlock smaller discoveries by adopting standardised solutions and simpler execution models.

Together, the four developments are expected to contribute between 130 million and 220 million barrels of oil equivalent to future production from the Norwegian continental shelf.

“We envisage around 75 subsea developments towards 2035. To realise these resources, we need to develop smaller discoveries faster and at a lower cost than today. This requires significant changes in how we plan and execute subsea projects. Our ambition is to halve both costs and execution time through simpler processes and standardised solutions together with our partners and suppliers,” said Gunnar Nakken, Senior Vice President for projects and subsea on the Norwegian continental shelf in Equinor.

Equinor said the new contracting model will strengthen competition, improve supply chain predictability and allow suppliers to support multiple projects simultaneously.

“We are strengthening competition and predictability and giving suppliers the opportunity to deliver on several projects at the same time. It is essential to reduce costs, and the response from the industry confirms significant improvement potential. We will now scale this collaboration to make marginal discoveries profitable and maintain activity levels on the Norwegian continental shelf,” said Jannicke Nilsson, Chief Procurement Officer.

Under the contracts, TechnipFMC will provide subsea production systems for the Brime, Omega Sør and Tyrihans Nord projects, as well as install rigid pipelines on the Troll field, with linepipe supplied by Tenaris.

OneSubsea will deliver the subsea production system for the TWIN project and provide umbilicals across all developments.

Ocean Installer has secured the marine operations contract, including installation and connection of subsea facilities, control cables and flexible pipelines, while NOV will supply flexible pipelines for Omega Sør, Tyrihans Nord and Brime.

“This is equipment with long lead times, so we need to invest early if we are to halve the time from discovery to production. We order standard equipment that can be used by later projects if one of the projects in the first wave is not sanctioned by the partnership or approved by the authorities,” said Nakken.

The four projects include TWIN, which will be tied back to Troll A; Omega Sør, planned for tie-back to Snorre A; Tyrihans Nord, which will be produced through the Kristin platform; and Brime, which is planned to connect to Gullfaks C via the existing Visund Sør subsea template.

TWIN is currently the only project sanctioned by the owners, with notification submitted to Norway’s Ministry of Energy under the Petroleum Act.

The remaining projects will proceed through partnership and regulatory approval processes before final investment decisions. -OGN/TradeArabia News Service