Aasta Hansteen topside begins journey to Norway

The heavy transport vessel Dockwise White Marlin, carrying the 24,000-tonne Aasta Hansteen topside, has begun its journey from Ulsan, South Korea, to Norway.

 

According to latest AIS data, the White Marlin and the topside are several kilometres off the city of Busan and, if all goes as planned, will make their first stop in Port Louis, Mauritius, on the 21st October.

 

According to the project operator, Statoil, the journey from the shipyard in South Korea to Norway will take two months. The topside will be mounted on top of the massive spar substructure upended on the field in early July.

 

The substructure for the world’s largest spar platform arrived from Hyundai Heavy Industries’ facility in Ulsan, South Korea to Norway on the 18th June, after a 14,500 nautical mile journey at sea.

 

When the topside and spar substructure are put together, the gas platform will be towed to the Norwegian Sea and the Aasta Hansteen field during 2018.

 

The Aasta Hansteen platform will be Norway’s first spar platform in production. Spar is a cylindrical, partially submerged offshore drilling and production platform which is particularly well adapted to deepwater.

 

The gas discovery – previously named Luva – is situated at a depth of 1,300 metres in the Vøring area, 300 kilometres from land.

 

Statoil is the operator of the field with Wintershall, OMV and ConocoPhillips as partners.