Accelerating decommissioning during oil price slump

However, when low oil prices and the Covid-19 pandemic hit, The IOC wanted to bring forward the plans by a year to save money. Due to the short notice, they needed a power provider who could move fast - the tender was issued in April 2021, awarded in July, and had to be installed just four weeks later in August.

They required complete power to the platform, including accommodation, crane and seawater pumps. As the project was High Voltage (H.V.), they also required a partner with H.V. capability.

Factory Acceptance Testing also had to be carried out on the generators at the height of the pandemic when the movement of staff and equipment was severely restricted.

The IOC had initially requested 3 x 1250 kVA generators for the project. However, Aggreko always carries out a thorough assessment of power requirements and we found that 3 x 1500 kVA generators and a 3.15 MVA transformer at 6.6 kV would be more suitable to give them complete reliability throughout the decommissioning phase.

We were able to demonstrate our agility by carrying out all the Factory Acceptance Testing virtually and ensure that the generators could be installed within the tight timeframe.

The sudden drop in oil price meant that the customer was losing money so by bringing forward the decommissioning by a year they were able to minimise their losses and allow more time for any unexpected issues that may arise.