OKEA’s North Sea project starts taking shape with subsea installation

Members of the Subsea Integration Alliance (SIA), United States’ OneSubsea and United Kindgom’s Subsea7, have delivered and installed a structure forming the base of a project being developed by Norway’s oil and gas company OKEA in the North Sea.

As disclosed by the subsea duo, the subsea template for the Bestla project will act as the foundation for all underwater infrastructure, providing a platform to support oil and gas wells, associated equipment, as well as enabling the integration of pipelines and cables. 

This is said to be the first major delivery for Bestla, with the installation marking the start of its execution phase. The project will be developed as a tie-back to the Brage platform on the OKEA-operated Brage field, situated 13 kilometers away.

Subsea7 was in charge of the installation of the template, which was designed by OneSubsea in Pune, India, and fabricated at Aker Solutions’ facility in Egersund, Norway. Wellhead delivery is expected to follow in the coming weeks, and subsea tree assembly is starting in Curitiba, Brazil.

SIA is delivering a fully integrated subsea production system for Bestla, from subsea tree systems and controls to umbilicals and installation, through a single, collaborative contract model with OKEA. The partners believe this approach can help reduce risk, simplify interfaces, and accelerate time to first oil.

Previously known as Brasse, the Bestla project got its current name last November. Representing a discovery of oil with associated gas at license PL740 made in 2017, the asset is situated in the Troll-Oseberg area of the North Sea, just south of Brage.

The development of the field, estimated to contain 24 million barrels of oil equivalent gross in recoverable reserves, entails a two-well subsea tie-back to the Brage platform, which will serve as the host facility for production, processing, and export.

The partners in PL740 are OKEA as the operator and 39.27% interest holder, DNO Norge AS (39.27%), Lime Petroleum AS (17%), and M Vest Energy AS (4.4%).

The final investment decision (FID) for the project was announced in April 2024, with the plan for the development and operation (PDO) of the field being submitted a month later.