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Norwegian maritime multinational Havfram announced work had commenced on its latest contract, overseeing the abandonment and decommissioning of subsea facilities in Mauritania’s Chinguetti and Banda fields. The engineering, procurement, retrieval and disposal (EPRD) services contract was signed last month between Havfram and PC Mauritania 1 – a wholly owned subsidiary of Malaysian hydrocarbons megafirm Petronas. It is the fourth project awarded to Havfram in Africa and the Mediterranean in the past year, and the fourth they have conducted in Mauritania itself.
Havfram returns to the country having priorly executed phase 1 decommissioning operations for the two fields back in 2018 when the company was still known as Ocean Installer. Under the original EPRD contract, work included disconnecting the FPSO Berge Helene and decommissioning risers and umbilicals in the Chinguetti field at 800 meters depth some 80 km offshore.
Last year, Havfram was awarded a contract for the pre-installation and hook-up of the subsea mooring system for the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project’s FPSO under Technip Energies and bp on the Mauritania-Senegal border. The vessel is expected to arrive from China in Q3, 2022, when it will be stationed 35km offshore in 120 meters water depth. The project required Havfram to install some of the largest ever driven piles and mooring lines to service the vessel in the deepwater field as its fed by a set of four gas production wells with 15 trillion cubic feet of gas capacity.
The Chinguetti and Banda fields under Havfram’s latest EPRD contract thus play to the company’s strengths in maritime engineering demonstrated through prior works in the country. The Chinguetti field is located in Deep Water Block 4 of PSC B and represents the first commercial oil find in Mauritania, discovered in 2001, operating since 2006 and ceasing production in 2017. Banda field was discovered one year later, declared commercial in 2012.