North Sea Oil Rigs to be Powered by Floating Offshore Windfarm

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--A group of leading oil companies in the North Sea have made a final investment decision to build a floating offshore windfarm to power five offshore oil production rigs.

Led by Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) and its Snorre and Gullfaks oil field partners, the Hywind Tampen offshore windfarm project in the Norwegian North Sea will be located some 140 kilometres from shore in 260-300 metres of water between the Snorre and Gullfaks platforms. The oil and gas platforms will be the first ever powered by a floating offshore wind farm. Hywind Tampen will consist of wind turbines based on the Hywind technology developed by Equinor, with each rated at 8 megawatts (MW). The combined turbines will have a total capacity of 88 MW, capable of meeting about 35% of the annual power demand of the five Snorre A and B, and Gullfaks A, B and C platforms.

"We have been systematically maturing technologies for floating offshore wind for almost 20 years," said Eldar Sætre, chief executive officer of Equinor. "The decision by the Snorre and Gullfaks partners helps bring this technology an important step forward. About 80% of the global resource potential for offshore wind is in deep waters, and floating offshore wind may play an important part in the energy transition towards more sustainable global energy supply. This brings substantial opportunities for Norwegian industry."

Investment in the project will total almost 5 billion Norwegian kroner ($547 million). Norwegian authorities through Enova have made a funding commitment of up to $251 million for the Hywind Tampen project while the Business Sector's NOx Fund has decided to support the project by up to $62 million.

"The authorities' consent to extending the productive life of the Gullfaks field to 2036 and the Snorre field to 2040, up to 20 years longer than when the fields were initially planned, has been essential to realizing the Hywind Tampen project," commented Arne Sigve Nylund, Equinor's executive vice president for Development & Production Norway. "The pioneering Hywind Tampen project will help cut emissions from Gullfaks and Snorre. We are driving a transition aimed to sustain and add value on the Norwegian continental shelf, while reducing the carbon footprint from our operations."

The companies believe that by reducing the use of gas turbines on the fields the project will help cut CO2 emissions by more than 200,000 tonnes per year, equivalent to the annual emissions from 100,000 passenger cars. Hywind Tampen will be commissioned in 2022.

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