BP & Maersk Oil Approve Front End

BP and its partner, Maersk Oil North Sea UK Limited, announced the approval of FEED (Front End Engineering and Design) for the Harding Area Gas Project. This is the first stage of a development project to allow the production of gas from the Harding area and prolong the life of the field beyond 2015. The project, which comprises a new gas processing platform bridge-linked to the existing Harding platform, will have the potential to process and export gas at rates of up to 400 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd). The project would also involve the subsea tie-back of the Devenick field and a gas export pipeline to connect the new gas platform to the existing Brae gas transmission pipeline. The final project approval decision is expected to be made around the end of the year. The FEED contractors are AMEC, JP Kenny and Production Services Network. The value of the FEED work will be around $15m and work is expected to be complete at the end of 2006.