Offshore Decommissioning: Heerema Taps AF Gruppen for Heimdal Platform Work
Heimdal – Credit: Photographer / Originator: Øyvind Hagen/Equinor
Oslo-listed AF Gruppen (AFG) has received a letter of award for a contract from the Dutch offshore services firm Heerema Marine Contractors for the engineering and offshore hook-down preparation of Equinor’s Heimdal Main Platform in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
The offshore platform surveys will start this year, followed by detailed engineering and offshore preparatory works to be performed within the next three years.
Lars Myhre Hjelmeset, EVP Offshore at AF Gruppen said: “We are very pleased to have been awarded this contract by Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC). In cooperation with both Heerema Marine Contractors and Equinor, we look forward to starting this important work. In this project, we will survey, engineer, and prepare the 20,000-tonne Heimdal Main Topside for removal by reverse installation.
This project represents an important continuation within one of our core competencies, and the award is a recognition of our significant track record in delivering safe and efficient offshore solutions.”
In June 2023, the Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority, gave Equinor consent to dispose of the facilities on the Heimdal field in the Norwegian part of the North Sea.
A decommissioning plan for Heimdal was submitted in 2020, and according to the formal removal resolution, decommissioning must be completed by the end of 2028.
In December 2021, Norwegian offshore energy engineering and construction services firm Aker Solutions won a contract with Heerema Marine Contractors to recycle offshore installations from the Heimdal and Veslefrikk fields in Norway.
Earlier in 2021, it was said that the Heimdal riser platform would be removed in 2024, at the earliest, while the Heimdal main platform and the Veslefrikk A platform would be removed no earlier than 2025.
