OSLO, Aug 23 (Reuters) - The topside of Repsol's faulty Yme oil platform was removed from the field offshoreNorway on Monday, Swiss-based heavy-lift vessel owner Allseassaid, a key hurdle for the Spanish oil firm's planned sale ofthe production license.
Using the giant Pioneering Spirit vessel, the removal in asingle lift of the 13,500-tonnes topside marks a new step indecommissioning of offshore oil platforms, which previously hadto be taken apart piece by piece, meaning longer operations.
"This was the first time in the world that a topside waslifted in a single lift," Jeroen Hagelstein, a spokesman forAllseas said in an email on Tuesday.
The next job for the vessel, which looks like a giganticcatamaran, will be to remove four topsides at Shell's Brent field offshore Britain in 2017, he added.
The Yme platform, previously operated by Canada's Talisman,and now by Repsol, has sat unmanned since 2012, when its staffwas evacuated due to cracks found in the platform's legs, beforeit could produce any oil.
Norwegian startup oil firm OKEA, which includes thecountry's former oil minister Ola Borten Moe, agreed in Januaryto acquire Repsol's 60-percent stake in the Yme field for anundisclosed sum.
Repsol has previously said it plans to complete the OKEAagreement in 2016 following the removal of Yme's platform andsubject to submitting and obtaining approval of an updated planfor development.
Repsol was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.
French Veolia has won a contract to dismantle Yme'stopside at a yard in Lutelandet, Western Norway. (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)
