Norwegian companies bidding for work on the giant Barents Sea gas development Shtokman now number 40 in Murmansk with 130 hopefulls seeking entry into the city, an official StatoilHydro base, a supplier conference in Bodø northern Norway heard at the weekend.

September will mark the Shtokman Development Co.’s first deadline for giving Russian authorities a plan for the 3.8-trillion-cubic-metre arctic gas field’s development and operation. With early engineering underway, some 56 months of construction are due to begin this September, according to Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

“The platform will be the biggest challenge,” a StatoilHydro leader in Russian was quoted as saying. He said companies who “whined” about decisions being made differently had no business in Russia.

The forerunning Shtokman concept is still a floating, disconnectable spar able to dodge roving icebergs of the two-million-tonne variety.

The StatoilHydro source said planners saw little difficulty making lanfall with their pipeline, and plant for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and its jetty in Orlovka Bay still looked doable, though timetables are seen as tight.

“According to the plan, we should start this year by advancing the railroad and power to Teriberka (village),” he was quoted as saying.

A complete run-down of Shtokman, Goliat and recent arctic operations appeared in the latest edition of Scandinavian Oil-Gas Magazine.

Several Norwegian firms, like builder Reinertsen, already have a foothold in Murmansk, and have been reported on exhaustively in the Magazine, a Scandoil.com affiliate.

Aftenposten, meanwhile, reported that Reinertsen has since evolved in Murmansk, the Russian port in the Eastern Barents, with scores of Russian engineers and a Russian design firm.

First piped gas is due in 2013, with first LNG in 2014.

ws@scandoil.net

Tags: Reinertsen AS, Shtokman