Equinor has awarded DeepOcean a four-year frame agreement for marine services that includes subsea intervention and repair contingency for subsea pipelines, structures and high voltage cables for not only oil and gas fields but also offshore renewables.

The agreement comes with a scope for extension up to another four years.

Geographically the agreement is valid for work on the Norwegian continental shelf and internationally for planned Equinor work and for contingency work for the PRSI pool members, which comprises 23 energy companies that cover their offshore pipeline and power cable repair contingency via the pool.

The contract delivery will be managed by DeepOcean from its Haugesund-based office in Norway. 

“Such a long-term agreement allows us to constantly evolve working methods, collaboration models and technologies, with the objective of making offshore operations and subsea cable repair work as cost-effective as possible. We look forward to supporting Equinor and the PRSI Pool members over the coming years,” said Olaf A Hansen, Managing Director of DeepOcean’s European operation.

For work in the offshore oil and gas industry, the frame agreement covers planned or unplanned marine services using remote operated intervention methods with or without the use of PRS equipment.

Under the agreement, DeepOcean is also expected to be equipped to produce multiple engineering or preparedness studies as requested by Equinor or PRSI pool members.

“DeepOcean has a 400 people-strong engineering team that are specialists on solving subsea challenges across industries. We are industry agnostic and share learnings and experiences from subsea operations across different types of operations and industries in order to develop the best possible solutions for our clients. Our experience from oil and gas is highly valuable for offshore renewables – and vice versa," said Normann Vikse, Offshore Renewables Director at DeepOcean.

DeepOcean has already received the first call-offs for work under the new frame agreement.

On behalf of Gassco and Equinor, DeepOcean will perform seabed preparations and complex remote hot tap tie-in operations at three different locations on the Norwegian continental shelf. Hot tapping is a method of connecting to a pressurised system, such as a pipeline, without removing the pipe from service.

On behalf of Gassco with Equinor acting as technical service provider, DeepOcean has already performed marine services to support baseline inline inspection of a large sized pipeline.