Kvaerner, Korean Yards Want Statoil Contracts

Norway's Kvaerner is a favourite to win a key Statoil (STO) platform deck contract, while three Korean yards were vying for two other platform deals on the giant Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea, trade weekly Upstream said on Friday.

Kvaerner is expected to be selected by June 1 to design and build the living quarters for the Sverdrup field, Europe's most expensive oil project ever, with the deal worth around 5 billion crowns ($646 million), Upstream said without naming its source.

Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries (010140.KS) and Daewoo Shipbuilding were competing to build the process and riser platform decks for the Sverdrup field, a discovery with up to 3 billion barrels of oil equivalents that will cost up to $28 billion to develop fully.

The riser and process platform contracts are expected to be awarded by June 14, the paper said.

Statoil said the tenders were ongoing and it expected to award these contracts before the summer holidays.

Reporting by Balazs Koranyi