Major Milestone in Greater Area Stella Development

Costain Upstream’s project management and development engineering specialist EPC Offshore (EPC) said it has marked a major milestone in Ithaca Energy’s Greater Area Stella development with the load out of the subsea structures completed on time and within budget.

The Stella drill center manifolds, riser base structures and export pipeline tie in structures have all been built at Isleburn’s facilities in Ross Shire, Scotland. The sail-away marked the end of 12 months of intensive onshore fabrication activity.

The structures are a key part of delivery and installation of the subsea infrastructure for Stella, with the overall subsea works being worth over £200millon (GBP) including the Technip U.K. Ltd. EPIC contract. EPC is managing the structures fabrication workscope as part of Ithaca’s integrated project team. The largest structure built as part of the contract, the main drill center manifold, weighs in at over 300 metric tons.

Keith Wallace, head of the new Costain Upstream division said, “Our approach of package managing the structures has allowed Ithaca to free issue the equipment to the subsea installation contractor whilst maintaining close control over the engineering, build quality and delivery schedule of these production critical components. The successful load out of these structures represents a very visible milestone in the Stella timeline and we are pleased to have managed this element of the field development on time, within budget and to the client’s satisfaction.”

The Greater Area Stella fields lie in the prolific Central Graben area of the U.K. North Sea.  The production hub that is being constructed will have the capability to develop the Stella, Harrier and Hurricane fields with subsea wells tied back to the “FPF-1” floating production facility.