Zurich, Switzerland, January 8, 1996 - ABB, the international electrical engineering company, in a consortium with the two Norwegian companies Aker and the Maritime Group (40 percent owned by ABB), has signed a contract with the Norwegian state oil company Statoil to develop the Asgard Field in the North Sea. The consortium will supply a Floating Production, Storage and Offshore installation (FPSO) to handle the production from the field. The contract includes the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of the world's largest ship for oil production. The total contract value to the consortium is approximately USD 400 million. Oil production from Asgard is expected to come on stream by October 1998, pending approval of the development by the Norwegian authorities, which is expected by June 1996.
The Asgard Field is situated at Haltenbanken, 260 kilometers north-west of Trondheim off the Norwegian coast. The Asgard production facilities will cover the world's largest subsea field which will include the Midgard, Smorbukk and Smorbukk South areas. The reserves are estimated at 735 million barrels of oil and 232 billion cubic meters of gas. The FPSO will be the world's largest oil production ship, measuring 276 meters long, 45 meters wide and 26 meters deep. It will have an oil production capacity of approximately 200,000 barrels per day and a storage capacity of 150,000 cubic meters of oil. Its gas processing capacity will be 15 - 16 million cubic meters per day.
ABB's worldwide oil, gas and petrochemical business activities are headquartered in Norway and consist of the companies ABB Offshore Technology, ABB Lummus Global, ABB Soimi and ABB Vetco Gray. The business focuses on the development and modification of oil and gas installations, refineries, and petrochemical and chemical installations worldwide. Approximately 8,000 people are employed in these activities.
The business is part of ABB's Industrial and Building Systems segment, which employs over 89,000 people worldwide with orders in 1994 of over USD 13 billion.
The ABB Group employs approximately 212,000 people with orders in 1994 of nearly USD 32 billion.
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