Arup joins the Marginal Field Delivery Consortium

ABT Oil and Gas (“ABTOG”) is delighted to announce it has signed a collaboration agreement with global engineering and design consultancy Arup.  Arup thus becomes the latest member of the Marginal Field Delivery Consortium (“the Consortium”) that ABTOG has established to assist in the delivery of its Marginal Field Initiative, joining AGR, Apollo, Braemar ACM, Frames, Kongsberg Maritime and RMRI. 

The addition of Arup to the Consortium is a very positive step for the Initiative as Arup has considerable project management experience that will enhance the Consortium’s ability to deliver its range of solutions to budget and on schedule.  Arup also brings an additional proven-in-use structure (the ACE platform) that can house ABTOG’s normally unattended topsides.

Four of Arup’s range of ACE self-installing and re-deployable platforms have been deployed to date (in Australia’s Bass Strait, the Taranaki Basin off New Zealand, the West Natuna Sea in Indonesia and the West Philippine Sea), with a fifth currently being developed for a field in the UK North Sea.  These award-winning self-installing and re-locatable platforms combine the advantages of traditional fixed platforms with the versatility offered by a mobile unit and are particularly economical where reuse allows several reserves to be exploited, in areas of high decommissioning costs, or where access to specialist installation vessels is limited and costly.  As such they have many of the characteristics ABTOG believes are required for the development of certain small or marginal fields.  The ACE has particular advantages for application to a number of the projects on which ABTOG is currently in discussion and, together with Arup’s extensive experience and expertise, will allow ABTOG and the Consortium to accelerate progress towards a major project.