Equinor is targeting a 40% reduction in carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane emissions by 2030 from its fields and related facilities offshore and onshore Norway. The company’s longer-term goal is near-zero emissions by 2050.
Planned cuts over the coming decade should come from a combination of improved energy efficiency, digitalization, and electrification projects at major field hubs such as Oseberg, Statfjord and Troll in the North Sea and at the Snohvit LNG plant. The company and its partners on the associated licenses expect to spend around $5.68 billion subject to final investment decisions (and continued stability of Norway’s tax regime). Deeper cuts beyond 2030 will involve more widespread electrification and development of new technologies.
Aker Solutions has already started front-end engineering and design for modifications to the Troll B and C platform topsides to receive power imported directly from Kollsnes on Norway’s west coast, in place of existing gas turbine-driven electricity generators and gas compressors. The plan is for full electrification of Troll C and initially part-electrification of Troll B, bringing CO₂ savings of 450,000 metric tons/yr (496,040 metric tons). The Troll A platform is already powered from the shore.
At Statfjord, Equinor is adopting a different approach by seeking to halve the field’s CO₂ emissions per produced barrel through higher production. This is related to the partners’ recent decision to extend production from the field, which came onstream in 1979, through 2040. Statfjord remains Norway’s largest discovery, with resources of almost 9 Bboe. Forward plans include drilling around 100 new wells over the next decade to sustain current production beyond 2025; and establishing a new late-life unit which will also be tasked with lowering the field’s emissions.
Britain’s Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) is working on plans to develop the UK continental shelf as an “integrated energy basin,” adapted for emerging emissions-reducing technologies. It has detailed the results of initial investigations in a new report: the concepts include electrification of offshore oil and gas installations, with some of the power supplied directly from offshore wind farms. Another involves converting offshore oil and gas infrastructure to produce and transport ‘blue’ hydrogen (natural gas reforming) and ‘green’ hydrogen (electrolysis via renewables) through re-conditioned pipelines. The OGA expects to complete Phase 2 this spring, to be followed by a final report.
Shearwater set to host Jackdaw
Shell is seeking approval for a fourth new project involving a tieback to the Shearwater production complex in the UK central North Sea. It has submitted to the authorities the environmental statement for the Jackdaw gas-condensate field, discovered by BG (since acquired by Shell) in blocks 30/2a and 30/2d. The company plans a new normally unattended wellhead platform with four wells, exporting production through a new 31-km (19-mi), 12-in. pipeline to Shearwater to the northwest, where the fluids would undergo processing before entering the Forties pipeline system. The gas would head through the Fulmar pipeline system.
Jackdaw is known to be one of the UK’s highest pressure/temperature fields. Shell expects to bring in a heavy-duty jackup to drill the wells between 3Q 2021 and 4Q 2022, with installation of the platform and export pipeline completed by 3Q 2023. Associated modifications would include the addition of a blowdown module at inlet facilities downstream of a new riser at the Shearwater A wellhead platform, and adapting the Shearwater C utilities quarters platform to remove CO₂ and H2S (hydrogen sulfide) from Jackdaw’s fluids. The other current tiebacks to Shearwater are Arran, Fram, and Columbus.
Drilling holding steady offshore Norway, UK
Exploration drilling offshore Norway last year delivered 17 discoveries, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s (NPD) annual review. Ten were in the North Sea, six in the Norwegian Sea and one in the Barents Sea, and some will probably be developed through tie-ins to nearby platforms or pipelines. New volumes proven have risen markedly over the past two years, said new Director-General Ingrid Solvberg, and the NPD expects around 50 exploratory well spuds this year throughout the Norwegian shelf.
Exploration drilling offshore Norway last year delivered 17 discoveries, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s (NPD) annual review. Ten were in the North Sea, six in the Norwegian Sea and one in the Barents Sea, and some will probably be developed through tie-ins to nearby platforms or pipelines. New volumes proven have risen markedly over the past two years, said new Director-General Ingrid Solvberg, and the NPD expects around 50 exploratory well spuds this year throughout the Norwegian shelf.
Wood Mackenzie foresees up to 10 wells in the Barents Sea over the year ahead, despite recent disappointing results in the far north, and 60 across the North Sea as a whole. Across the northwest Europe offshore region, production should rise by 5% this year, the consultant added, boosted mainly by ramp-ups at the recently onstream Culzean and Mariner fields in UK waters and Johan Sverdrup in the central Norwegian North Sea. And a potential 22 field investment decisions could be taken in 2020 with total investments of $15 billion, led by Siccar Point Energy/Shell’s $2.5-billion Cambo oil project west of Shetland. But as Wood Mackenzie pointed out, by far the largest North Sea FID is likely to be Equinor/SSE’s Dogger Bank wind farm project with an estimated cost of $12 billion.•
