By Balazs Koranyi
STAVANGER, Norway, March 15 (Reuters) - Norway on Fridayreceived the first of four sets of equipment to be deployedaround the world to ensure a quick response to subsea oil wellblowouts such as the one which BP suffered in the Gulf ofMexico in 2010.
The equipment is being built at a cost of over $200 millionand backed by BP and eight other oil companies.
The aim is to reduce the time needed to cap uncontrolledwells to days or a few weeks, far faster than the 87 days ittook to regain control at BP's Macondo well, which spilled morethan 4 million barrels of oil.
BP has already raised some $37 billion to pay for clean-upcosts, fines and compensation which already more than match thisamount. Plaintiffs are demanding even more during the firm'songoing trial.
"The industry looked at the cost BP is facing and said wenever want to deal with that again," said Robert Limb, chiefexecutive of Oil Spill Response, a not-for-profit group set upby oil firms.
"It's a relatively cheap insurance policy," he told Reutersafter the first set of equipment was deployed at Stavanger onNorway's west coast. "Macondo showed a clear gap in capabilitiesand this is intended to fill that."
Three more will be placed in Singapore, South Africa andBrazil this year.
Oil firms will drill more than a 100 subsea wells this yearwith much of that set for the North Sea, Brazil, East Africa andAustralia.
Similar capping equipment is already in place in the UnitedStates and Britain but the new equipment will be the first thatcan be deployed globally.
"For Macondo, the response time would probably have beenweeks, rather than days but certainly not months," said KeithLewis, the project's manager.
The new caps will be able to plug both oil and gas wells inwaters up to 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) deep. They can hold backwell flows equalling up to 100,000 barrels per day.
In case of extreme urgency, it could be flown to location,although that would require up to five Boeing 747 aircraft.
Central to the equipment is a 147 tonne capping stack, whichcan be placed on top of a blown well and kept there for up totwo years.
Along with BP, the firms taking part are BG Group,Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil,Petrobras, Shell, Statoil and Total.
