On Tuesday, October 21, the “Petrobaltic” drilling platform arrived in Gdynia, which will be rebuilt by the MARS Group companies into an operational platform. Two Tri-City shipyard groups, which increasingly appear in the industry as competitors, fought for the contract; Remontowa Holding group and Mars Shipyards & Offshore.

In the tender for the reconstruction of the platform, Lotos clearly focused on experienced and stable shipyards. Companies that had projects related to the construction/reconstruction of drilling platforms or jack-up vessels could participate in it. The contractor also had to have appropriate technical potential and personnel and demonstrate that it had generated sales revenues at a level not lower than PLN 400 million annually in each of the last two financial years and have equity of not less than PLN 200 million.

The winner of the contract is state-owned Mars Shipyards & Offshore, which includes: Stocznia Remontowa Nauta, Energomontaż-Północ Gdynia and Stocznia Crist together with a foreign partner – the Dubai Drydocks World shipyard. The companies of this group operate on the premises of the former Gdynia Shipyard, have large production potential, good infrastructure and experience in ship construction and renovation, construction of large-scale offshore structures and jack-up vessels (“Vidar”, “Innovation”). the investment will be carried out by the following companies: Energomontaż Północ Gdynia, Stocznia Remontowa Nauta and Crist. The foreign partner of the Crist Shipyard – Dubai Drydocks World (an international supplier of offshore services for the shipbuilding and energy sectors) also guarantees experience directly related to the construction and reconstruction of drilling platforms.

As part of the reconstruction, existing equipment and installations will be removed, and the space obtained will be used to install production installations. The fabrication, assembly and equipment of two hull sections, disassembly of truss legs, installation of new cylindrical legs, modification and enlargement of the living part of the platform will also be carried out.

Once the work is completed, the platform is to be moved to the Baltic B8 field and will become its production center.

The launch of commercial production from the B8 deposit is planned for the end of 2015, although due to the postponement of the date of the platform reconstruction (so far by a month), the start of production will probably be delayed. The extraction potential of the deposit was estimated at 3.5 million tons of crude oil, and LOTOS Petrobaltic expects to obtain approximately 220,000 tons from it. tons of oil per year.

The value of the contract is estimated at over PLN 110 million.

MN