CHON BURI : Norway's Aibel AS will join bidding to be called by Statoil AS, that country's state-owned oil conglomerate, for a 10,000-tonne petroleum production platform, using its production base in Thailand.
From left, Jan Skogseth, the head of Aibel AS, Katja Christina Nordgaard, the Norwegian ambassador to Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, Duangjai Asawachintachit, deputy secretarygeneral of Thailand’s Board of Investment, and Lars Rossland, chairman of the Gudrun project and a vice-president of Statoil, toast the project’s completion yesterday. SOMCHAI POOMLARD
One of largest petroleum and renewable energy engineering providers in Europe has made Thailand a secondary production base.
Stig Jessen, an executive vice-president, said if Aibel wins the bidding, it will start development next March.
However, the company must compete with major South Korean rivals Samsung, Daewoo and Hyundai.
"The skill of human resources and lower labour costs here give us cost advantages over our rivals, and that's why we decided to choose Thailand as a second production base," said Mr Jessen.
He said production costs in Norway are eight times higher than in Thailand.
The company expects growth in global platform assembly will remain strong for at least another eight years.
Jim Ryan, the managing director of Aibel (Thailand) Co, said the parent company has seen significant growth since it started operations in Southeast Asia in 1998.
Aibel entered Thailand in 2005, investing US$10 million in a facility and assembly yard.
The present facilities in Rayong and Laem Chabang have a combined area of 200,000 square metres.
Yesterday Aibel delivered a petroleum production platform named the Gudrun project in Laem Chabang.
The 2-billion-baht platform weighs 6,000 tonnes.
The company expects to take 35 days to ship the platform from Thailand to Norway.
It will be put together with a 4,500-tonne office and living module in the town of Haugesund and delivered to Statoil's offshore petroleum production block in the North Sea, which is scheduled to start production in the first quarter of 2014.
The $600-million Gudrun project began development in April 2011 and was finished yesterday.
The Gudrun platform has the capacity to produce 12,000 barrels of oil per day and 210 million cubic feet of gas per day.
