Around 600 jobs are to be created after a Wallsend shipyard secured a North Sea oil and gas contract. Offshore engineering, procurement and construction specialist OGN Group, has landed a multi-million pound contract with independent UK oil and gas company EnQuest.

OGN will undertake finishing and commissioning works on the EnQuest Producer, a 249m long floating production, storage and offloading vessel. The EnQuest Producer recently arrived at OGN’s Hadrian Yard in Wallsend. Upon completion of the works, the vessel will be deployed to the Alma/Galia field in the North Sea. On 3rd December the Aker H-3 propulsion assisted semi-submersible rig Blackford Dolphin arrived at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard for a makeover after a three month voyage under tow from Brazil.

The rig underwent a major deep-water upgrade in 2006 to 2008 and at that time, Harland and Wolff designed and built the new 130 man accommodation blocks, power generation module, mud room and additional buoyancy for the conversion. Around 600 workers have been hired to work on the rig, which will, once the job is completed after 50 days or so, move to the North Sea where it will begin its next drilling contract with MPX and Capricorn, respectively. The equipment is too big to fit beneath the Samson and Goliath cranes, which were moved along their tracks to the city end of the building dock for the duration of the refurbishment contract.

Shell has also floated the hull for the world’s largest floating facility (FLNG), the 488-metre-long hull of the Prelude FLNG. The vessel has been built at the Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) yard in Geoje, South Korea. The Prelude will unlock new energy resources offshore and produce approximately 3.6 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per annum to meet growing demand. Prelude FLNG is the first deployment of Shell’s FLNG technology and will operate in a remote basin around 475 kilometres north-east of Broome, Western Australia for around 25 years. The facility will remain onsite during all-weather events, having been designed to withstand a category 5 cyclone.

Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri are also working together with the Krylov State Research Centre on a project to develop a drill ship able to operate in particularly difficult conditions, in full respect of the environment and crew safety. This highly advanced vessel will be able to navigate in ice up to 1.5 metres thick and ambient temperatures of -40°C and will have a 4-month operational autonomy.