A Great Yarmouth engineering company has been awarded a contract to decommission seven wells in the North Sea.

Claxton has been awarded a contract to case cut and recover seven wells in the southern North Sea based around two normally unmanned platforms and also remove a subsea suspended well.

Work is scheduled to commence next month at the first location, located around 180km off the Yorkshire coast, with work on the second platform, in the Dowsing Fault Zone of the Southern North Sea, commencing shortly afterwards.

The combined project completion is estimated at just under 100 days.

Due to limited deck space, work will be conducted using the jack up lift barge Julb and without the use of a drilling rig.

The limited deck space also means that Claxton has developed a bespoke, all-purpose work deck.

Laura Claxton, managing director at Claxton, said: 'Our global experience allows us to provide the most comprehensive decommissioning package for all of our clients, but always having an eye on providing the most cost-effective solution for abrasive severance, cut verification and recovery.

'We will be using a 150te hydraulic proving jack package, Claxton double drilling units for drilling and pinning and rapid cut bandsaws for cutting the combined multi strings.

'Marine growth stripping and removal using our purpose designed tooling will also be delivered, along with multi-string severance using our proprietary abrasive water jet cutting system Sabre.

'As part of the provided solution our equipment is unique and can again offer the operator real savings. 'Our bottom hole anchor and catch tool system for example, allows recovery of the conductor stump and conductor during the surface recovery stage reducing this to a single operation and removing the need for fishing tools.

'We have also provided an engineered and aligned solution to reduce the number of slewing operations required by the Julb crane with a revision to our existing tubing laydown frame by incorporating a travelling bogie system. The frame and bogie eliminates the need for the crane to slew from the well centre while still allowing tubing to be laid out on deck. This saves valuable time on a project.'