Coflexip receives a letter of intent from Norsk Hydro for Fram Vest EPCI contract

Coflexip Stena Offshore (Paris) announced today that Coflexip Stena Offshore Norge AS, its Norwegian entity, has just received a letter of intent from Norsk Hydro for the Fram Vest EPCI contract worth 80MEUR (640MNOK). The Fram Vest field is located approximately 20km North of the Troll C platform in the North Sea in approximately 1,180 ft (360m) water depth. Contract sanction is expected early August.

The scope of work for the Fram Vest project comprises supply, fabrication and installation of flowlines and risers from the Troll C platform to two subsea templates located at 25km from the platform.

CSO will design, procure, fabricate and install two 10" flexible risers (including Gammaflex(R) pressure layer), one multibore riser, one dynamic service umbilical riser, each of 800m length, and two rigid flowlines of 12" and 13" diameter for a total length of 50km. In addition, the scope includes installation of 25 km of static service umbilical.

The flexible risers will be manufactured at CSO's flexible manufacturing plant in Le Trait, France, while the CSO spoolbase at Orkanger, Norway, will perform the fabrication of the rigid flowlines.

The offshore installation of the system will be undertaken summer 2003 using the CSO Constructor for the flexible risers and umbilical, and the CSO Apache reelship for the rigid flowlines.

Carl Holmen, Managing Director of CSO Norge, stated: "We are happy to be working again with Norsk Hydro for which we have successfully developed Njord, Visund and Snorre B. We are proud to have won the Fram Vest project, which is our first EPCI project including rigid pipelines with Norsk Hydro, based on the evaluation of both price and technical solutions, where CSO was the most competitive."

CSO, the leading global contractor for subsea and deepwater solutions to the offshore oil and gas industry, offers technically advanced and cost- effective best in class services and products for the development of offshore hydrocarbon fields worldwide. From front-end engineering to field abandonment, the Group solutions in engineering, fabrication and installation are proposed on either an integrated or a segmented basis.

We provide our clients with a large range of deepwater production facilities (SPAR, FPSO, TLP, semi-sub) and leading edge subsea technical expertise in moorings, pipeline-riser-umbilical systems and robotics. These core skills are supported by strong engineering and project management capabilities, state of the art industrial assets and the most advanced fleet of subsea construction and installation vessels.

Listed in New York (Nasdaq) and in Paris (Premier Marche), the CSO Group, headquartered in Paris, employs approximately 8,200 employees spread over five continents, with subsidiaries in Angola, Australia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, Norway, Russia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Source: Coflexip Stena Offshore Group