Baker Hughes has landed a significant contract from BP covering vessel-based well stimulation across the UK North Sea, with work spanning both new wells and campaigns aimed at extracting additional output from mature fields.

Announcing the award on September 4, the US energy services group said it will deploy its modular StimFORCE stimulation package, delivering well completion and production enhancement services from a dedicated vessel. Details of the contract's value, duration, and the vessel to be used have not been disclosed.

The work will be supported from Baker Hughes' UK operating base and local supply chain. According to the company, the vessel-based setup is designed to give BP greater flexibility in scheduling stimulation campaigns across its offshore portfolio.

The award comes amid a broader reshaping of BP's UK upstream business. Earlier this year, the major launched a process to sell its North Sea operations, which currently consist of five producing hubs — Clair, Clair Ridge, Glen Lyon, ETAP and Andrew — along with a non-operated stake in Ithaca Energy's Vorlich field. Well stimulation services of this kind are commonly used to sustain or restore output from mature offshore assets, where many UK North Sea fields have been in production for decades and operators face declining reservoir pressure and a winding-down investment climate as the basin heads toward late-life operations and decommissioning.

Baker Hughes already has an established track record in vessel-based stimulation. As Splash reported last year, Petrobras extended deployments of the Blue Marlin and Blue Orca stimulation vessels in Brazil, and the company has also secured a series of subsea and turbomachinery packages from the Brazilian major. The BP award extends that vessel-based model into the North Sea, where vessel delivery can reduce the need for permanent stimulation equipment on platforms — a consideration for operators weighing continued investment in aging infrastructure.

Source: Splash247