North Sea Decom: Claxton Secures Statoil Deal

Norfolk, England-based Claxton Engineering Services has secured a decommissioning deal with Statoil to provide the 'rigless recovery' of seven abandoned wells at the Huldra platform in the Norwegian North Sea.

The Huldra field is a gas and condensate field, located northeast of Bergen. Production was closed down in September 2014. In April this year Statoil announced that contracts for the removal, disposal and recycling of the Huldra platform had been awarded to Hereema Marine Contractors Nederland SE and AF Offshore Decom AS.

Claxton – which supplies engineering services for shallow-water, jack-up depth projects – said that its work at the Huldra field will start in December 2016 and that it expects it to be completed within 21 days. Claxton is responsible for the full scope of decommissioning work, including project planning, severance and full multiple string recovery.

A spokesperson for Claxton, which employs 135 people and has a team dedicated to decommissioning work, told Rigzone that the decommissioning market is "very important for our strategy" and "a significant contribution to our revenue". The firm performed the world's first rigless platform well abandonment campaign on the Esmond, Forbes and Gorden fields in the North Sea in 1995 and has completed more than 280 cutting and recovery projects since.

Consequently, according to Managing Director Laura Claxton, this experience means the firm is now able to provide "the most comprehensive decommissioning packages for our clients".

Earlier this year, a report from industry consultancy Douglas Westwood estimated that the North Sea decommissioning market could be worth as much as $82 billion between 2016 and 2040 and that some 144 platforms are due to be removed in the UK North Sea between 2019 and 2026.