Petrofac becomes Duty Holder for BP Miller

Petrofac has been awarded a Duty Holder contract from BP to support the late life management of the Miller platform, located in the Central North Sea.

The contract is for ‘life of asset’ but has a four-year ceiling at which point extension options will be reviewed as required. Petrofac will assume Duty Holder responsibility for the non-producing Miller asset.  Within this scope the company will manage all aspects of on and offshore activities to enable a smooth transition from BP and in preparation for the next phase of the planned decommissioning programme for Miller.

The last day of production on Miller took place in July 2007.  Since then BP has undertaken well abandonment and topsides clean up on the asset and anticipates that the topsides will be removed during 2017 or 2018. BP will remain the licence owner for Miller and they will continue to pursue and evaluate a range of options for decommissioning the asset fully.  The appointment of Petrofac as Duty Holder enables BP to accelerate this process and to leverage Petrofac’s existing knowledge of the asset and its experienced and asset-familiar teams.

Walter Thain, Managing Director, West, Petrofac Engineering & Production Services said: “We are delighted to be supporting BP as it moves to the next phase of its decommissioning programme on the Miller platform.  Our people deployed on the asset have the knowledge, skillset and flexibility to deliver the activities in line with BP’s requirements and we are looking forward to being part of the next stage of the Miller journey.”

Win Thornton, VP Decommissioning, Global Projects Organisation, BP said: “I am pleased that we are making another step towards the efficient decommissioning of Miller with the award of a Duty Holder contract to Petrofac. The award is the culmination of an extensive market engagement and contracting process in which Petrofac demonstrated strong alignment to the Miller decommissioning project drivers.”

This award builds on Petrofac’s relationship with BP. It has been supporting BP’s global operations since 2012, supplying BP’s North Sea assets, including Miller, with its maintenance, metering and valve requirements.