More than just a valuable and prestigious award, this contract helps break the stranglehold held by Finland's Aker Rauma Yards on spar production platforms and will sound the arrival of the ever-aggressive Korean fabrication machine into a new segment of the offshore oil industry.
Sources said no official contract has yet been signed but this is more a factor of BP having yet to decide on the final dimensions of the spar hull rather than doubt about the chosen fabricator.
