In the Scottish part of the North Sea, Chinese state-owned energy giant China National Offshore Oil Corp. International Ltd. (CNOOC), has accepted delivery of a new topsides module for its Buzzard Phase II project, some 96 km northeast of the port of Aberdeen, at a depth of about 96 m of water.

The new module includes housing process, utilities, and controls equipment, the 27-m long, 18-m tall, 516-tonne unit was loaded on board from the Worley Rosenberg fabrication facility in Stavanger, brought to the field, and then installed on the southwest corner of the Buzzard production platform for hook up and commissioning.

This North Sea subsea project in the Moray Firth, is some 5 km northeast of Buzzard. It consists of a 12-slot manifold (eight production and four water injection slots). Once operational, this development will tie back to the existing Buzzard complex with a pipeline bundle assembly containing pipelines, manifolds, subsea controls, and chemical injection. A brownfield module is to be fitted on the production platform for processing and export via current export pipeline routes. Phase II production is expected to commence in 2021.

CNOOC is operator at Buzzard (43.2%) with partners Suncor Energy Inc. (29.9%), Chrysaor Norge AS (21.7%), and ONE Dyas BV (5.2%).