Technip yard in Pori receives large drilling platform order from USA

Hundreds of additional workers are needed for constructing platform's hull

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The Technip Offshore Finland yard in Pori's Mäntyluoto on the west coast of Finland has been awarded an oil rig engineering, procurement, and construction contract worth EUR 225 million by the American oil company Chevron.
      The Pori yard will deliver the hull and mooring systems for a drilling platform to be used in a Chevron deepwater oil production project in the Gulf of Mexico.
     
Technip Offshore Finland's Pori yard employs 650 workers, 300 of whom are currently temporarily laid off. According to Technip Offshore Finland President Tommi Matomäki, all the laid-off workers will be able to return back to work by the end of the year.
      Furthermore, the company plans to hire an additional 200 workers for the project, which will provide work for yet another 200 people through subcontracting deals.
      The hull of the drilling rig is scheduled for completion in mid-2007. The deepwater hull will be approximately 170 metres long, with a breadth of 39 metres. Moored to the seabed and floating in a vertical position, the hull will support the topside modules scheduled for later installation.
      The topside modules will include the drilling and oil pumping technology plus the crew accommodation facilities.
      Technip's Pori yard has anticipated this contract. In the spring Matomäki confirmed that negotiations with the Americans were under way. In August the company announced that it would be hiring 300 additional workers.
     
The platform contract was secured at a time when the sheet metal welder market in Western Finland is already overheated because of numerous ship orders and a nuclear power plant construction site.
      Company President Matomäki admitted on Thursday that finding the right workers is a task in itself. Matomäki said that the worldwide oil trade boom was conducive to securing the Chevron contract. He also believed the demand would remain high even after this contract.
      The Mäntyluoto yard's previous large order came in the spring of 2004, when another American oil giant Kerr-McGee ordered a platform hull priced at over EUR 100 million.
      The market for Mäntyluoto's floating, patented Spar hulls designed for deepwater oil production is susceptible to fierce business fluctuations. The work of the sheet metal welders is extremely demanding, particularly in winter conditions.
     
The Mäntyluoto yard has also been the subject of a hectic ownership shuffle. The yard, which was originally the offshore unit of Rauma-Repola, later became part of the Rauma Group.
      Norwegian company Aker Maritime purchased the yard in 1995. After that it was passed on to the French firm Coflexip. A business merger put the French oil technology engineering and construction company Technip into the role of the yard's present owner.


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