Aker Solutions has signed a contract to design, build and supply heavy oil separation equipment to an FPSO vessel operated by OSX, an EBX group company, in Brazil. The contract value is approximately NOK 40 million.

"This is a major breakthrough for our in-house heavy oil compact technology. We believe we are well positioned to win more contracts for further FPSO conversions in the Brazilian market," said Børre Sveen, president of Aker Solutions' process systems business in Norway.

The purpose of the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract is to offer new equipment to the existing process facilities, in order to convert the current light oil process system to heavy oil production on board the OSX-1 FPSO, which will operate for OGX, the oil company operating on the Waimea field offshore Brazil.

The contract scope includes design, procurement, fabrication and delivery of the following items:

• New degasser and compact electrostatic coalescer (CEC) mounted on a common skid with interconnecting piping
• Design modifications to existing second stage separator and delivery of new internals
• New third stage electrostatic 3D coalescer with internals

The work will be performed by Aker Solutions' process systems divisions in Norway, Canada and Scotland.

Fabrication of vessels and skid will be done in Singapore. The delivery is expected in April 2011.

The conversion of the FPSO and the client project administration is performed by BWO in Singapore on behalf of OSX with delivery from the shipyard scheduled for May 2011.

From http://rigzone.com/    (2010.11.19)