Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK – Chevron has started gas/condensate production at Alder, a high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT) field in the UK central North Sea.
Greta Lydecker, managing director, Chevron Upstream Europe, said: “The safe and successful completion of this project was underpinned by strong collaboration between Chevron and Alder co-venturer ConocoPhillips.
“Alder supports our goal of helping to maximize the economic recovery of the UK, adds significant production to our portfolio, and helps extend the field life of Britannia, an important asset to Chevron in the North Sea.”
Development involved a single subsea well connected via a 17.4-mi (28-km) pipeline to the ConocoPhillips-operated Britannia platform.
The facilities are designed to deliver up to 110 MMcf/d of natural gas and 14,000 b/d of condensate. Production from the HP/HT Alder field is expected to ramp up over the coming months.
UK companies were responsible for more than 70% of the development work at locations including Aberdeen, Invergordon, Leeds, and Newcastle.
Chevron said it applied innovative subsea technologies designed to meet the temperature and pressure challenges of Alder, discovered in 1975.
These included a number of firsts for Chevron in the North Sea, notably a vertical mono-bore subsea tree system; asubsea high integrity pressure protection system (HIPPS); and a specially designed corrosion monitoring system to measure the real-time condition of the production pipeline.
Alder is 100 mi (160 km) offshore in water depths of around 492 ft (150 m). Produced fluids are processed at a dedicated module attached to the Britannia BLP. Condensate will be exported via the Forties Pipeline System to the Grangemouth terminal and gas exported to the Scottish Area Gas Evacuation terminal at St Fergus, near Peterhead.
11/07/2016
