Plans evolving for Norway's major oil and gas field

STAVANGER, Norway, March 3 (UPI) -- Norwegian energy company Statoil said it signed a deal with a Swiss services company to build a platform for one of the region's largest oil and gas fields.

Swiss company Allseas Group was awarded the contract to help build a production platform to be used in the Johan Sverdrup field in the Norwegian waters of the North Sea. The Swiss company will transfer the assembled structures to lift-vessel Pioneering Spirit before transport to the field.

Drilling platform installations will be completed by 2018 and living quarters will be assembled the following year.

No value of the contract with Allseas was given. Last month, Statoil gave Norwegian services company Aibel a $1 billion contract to build the decks for the drilling platforms at Johan Sverdrup. Development plans for Johan Sverdrup were submitted to Norwegian Petroleum Minister Tord Lien and the National Petroleum Directorate, the nation's energy regulator, last month. The field is the fifth largest discovery ever made on the Norwegian continental shelf, described by the NPD as "gigantic."

Peak production is expected to be as high as 650,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Field operator Statoil said Johan Sverdrup will account for 25 percent of the combined production from the Norwegian continental shelf once it's in full swing.

The company estimates Johan Sverdrup should generate $200 billion in revenues over the next 50 years. Production is slated for 2019, a year later than originally planned.