CHC extends North Sea offshore contract
CHC has extended an existing two-year offshore oil and gas contract with oil exploration and development company Aker BP.
The operator will provide two AS332Ls to fly on offshore transport missions from Aker BPs base at the Valhall field in the Norwegian North Sea. The contract lasts until September 2021.
Mark Abbey, CHC regional director Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) said: “I’m delighted that we have been selected by Aker BP. We have been their aviation partner since the production start-up in 1982, and we value the continued confidence in this partnership.
“As the leading helicopter service provider in Norway, this work allows us to continue to build on our 50 years aviation experience supporting oil and gas customers on the Norwegian Continental Shelf as we continue to evolve our services and technology to best meet their needs.”
One of the helicopters will be stationed on the Valhall PH oil platform and the other will be used as a backup aircraft and stationed at CHC’ss Sola, Norway.
Karl Fessenden, President and CEO of CHC Helicopter said: “CHC has a proud history offering safe and reliable transportation to a variety of customers in EMEA. We are eager to continue to add new chapters to our history in the region, as we have had seen success not only in the North Sea oil and gas space, but also providing search and rescue services and additional transport as far west as Ireland, as far South as Equatorial Guinea, and as far east as Kazakhstan.”
The other offshore
CHC is a company entrenched in the oil and gas market, being one of the largest offsore transport providers, along with Bristow and NHV.
Since emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2017, CHC has been talking about diversifying its operations. One of the key markets it is looking at is the emerging offshore wind energy market.
With some expecting the demand for helicopters to fly on offshore wind operations to more than triple by 2021 as wind energy companies move away from transporting workers via boats to helicopters which are less effective by adverse weather conditions.
The biggest market for offshore wind is Europe which is has close to 13GW of offshore wind capacity but is expected to grow to more than 70GW by 2030. CHC is looking to seize the opportunities in this market.
Jan Lalkens, manager at CHC’s Den Helder base said: “CHC is in a strategic position to be able to provide essential services from a ring of operational bases around the North Sea, so we are ideally located to serve the entire basin. That applies to traditional oil and gas, but increasingly renewables.”
In February, we spoke to Karl Fessenden, CHC’s CEO and president about the opportunities in the offshore wind sector. The video can be found on our YouTube channel:
