CNR International has taken a major step towards the decommissioning of its UK North Sea Murchison platform.
The company, which is part of Canadian Natural Resources, has just awarded one of the project’s biggest contracts.
The Heerema-AF Consortium – comprising Heerema Marine Contractors Nederland and AF Gruppen subsidiary Decom Offshore UK – will remove and dispose of the installation.
Offshore work will start in early 2016 and continue until 2020.
The value of the contract, which will see engineering work get underway before the end of this year, was not disclosed.
AF Gruppen chief executive Pal Egil Ronn said: “After more than 10 years of successful cooperation with Heerema in decommissioning projects in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, we consider this contract as a major step in entering the British decommissioning market.
“The contract will strengthen AF Gruppen’s position as a leading decommissioning company in the North Sea.”
Commissioned in 1980, the Murchison platform has produced around 400million barrels of oil equivalent and played a key part in UK energy supply.
A scale model of the installation, located north-east of Shetland, is a central feature at Aberdeen Maritime Museum.
The Murchison field, in which CNR has a 77.8% stake alongside Wintershall Norge (22.2%), straddles the UK/Norway median line.
Production ceased earlier this year in advance of decommissioning.