North Sea NEWS

Equinor and its partners in the Troll and Oseberg oil and gas fields in the North Sea are looking into possible options for building a one-gigawatt floating offshore wind farm, the Norwegian energy firm said on Friday. The project, named Trollvind, could provide much of the electricity needed to run the Troll and Oseberg fields through an onshore connection point, Equinor said. "Power from Trollvind could make a solid contribution towards electrification of of oil and gas installations, accelerate offshore wind development in Norway, and deliver extra power to the Bergen region," it said in a statement.

Engineering firm Ramboll will provide high-level support to the VindØ consortium in planning the world’s first energy island in the North Sea. The Danish company is providing detailed studies of possible activities on the island, also due to be called VindØ, which is slated to include windfarms with a combined generating capacity of 10GW. The company is also looking at including a data centre in plans for the project.

Ørsted is set to develop one of the world’s largest renewable hydrogen plants to be linked to industrial demand in the Netherlands and Belgium. 'SeaH2Land' is an ambitious vision, linking gigawatt-scale electrolysis to the large industrial demand in the Dutch-Flemish North Sea Port cluster through an envisaged regional cross-border pipeline. The green electricity required to produce the renewable hydrogen is proposed to come from the build-out of additional large-scale offshore wind.

This will include up to £10bn for hydrogen production and £3bn for a technology called carbon capture, usage and storage - where carbon emissions are either turned into other products such as plastics or buried.The government says the deal should cut pollution by up to 60 million tonnes by 2030, while also supporting up to 40,000 jobs across the supply chain.

(Bloomberg) -- A new company soon to be created by Chrysaor Holdings Ltd and Premier Oil Plc will likely retain its stake in the giant Zama oil development in Mexico, reversing an earlier decision by the indebted North Sea driller to exit the project.

Spending by oil and gas companies operating in the UK North Sea fell to the lowest levels since 2004 last year as they concentrated on preserving cash during the pandemic, while production from the more than half a century-old basin has re-entered “longer-term” decline.

Premier Oil Plc, indebted North Sea driller being swallowed by Chrysaor Holdings Ltd., will re-emerge as largest independent oil and gas producer among UK stocks just as global crude market roars back. Harbour’s president will be Phil Kirk, who founded Chrysaor in 2007 with help from Barclays Plc and a U.S. private equity fund. Chrysaor buying assets from Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and after further acquisitions has become the No. 1 oil and gas producer in Britain.

A big decision comes the industry's way as Denmark decides to retire from the North Sea. On Thursday, the Danish Parliament voted in favour of ending the offshore oil and gas extraction. The nation has cancelled it's latest licensing round, saying the country is "now putting an end to the fossil fuel era". Currently, one-third of Denmark's electricity production derives from wind turbines.

One of Ithaca Energy's offshore platforms in the North sea has become 100% powered by renewable energy. Ithaca’s Jacky installation is now fully powered by wind and solar energy. Jacky would now have relatively low emissions compared to larger assets in the North Sea. However, now more operators seek to reduce emissions through green energy and electrification of their platforms.

Norway-based private equity company HitecVision-backed NEO Energy has completed the acquisition of UK North Sea assets from Total Oil UK and Total E&P North Sea UK. The acquisition included a portfolio of operated and non-operated assets. The transaction comprises a material and cash generative portfolio of assets in four producing areas of the UK North Sea. It adds production of approximately 23,000 boepd and reserves of 51 MMboe to Neo Energy’s portfolio.

Britain’s Neptune Energy and its partners have discovered oil at a jointly owned drilling license in the Norwegian part of the North Sea, and will now consider options for how to develop the find. The Dugong well is estimated to contain between 40 million and 120 million barrels of oil equivalent, making it the largest find off Norway so far this year.

Heerema, a major marine contractor based in Leiden, the Netherlands, has broken the record for the largest single lift jacket removal. Heerema’s semi-submersible crane vessel Sleipnir successfully removed the 8,100-tonne Jotun-B jacket in the Norwegian North Sea for client Vår Energi. The project was completed on Thursday, July 16 and the jacket was offloaded onto the quayside of the decommissioning site in Vats, AF Miljøbase. The removal was completed in four days.

Geo-data specialist Fugro has bagged a subsea inspection contract from UK-based offshore operator, Neptune Energy for its Cygnus gas field in the North Sea. Under the scope of the contract, Fugro will utilize its advanced remote monitoring technology to survey subsea structures present at the Cygnus gas field. The field is operated by Neptune Energy (38.75% stakes) where Spirit Energy is a partner (61.25% stakes).

The UK’s offshore oil and gas sector has announced plans to cut half of its emissions over the next decade. The latest move comes as the fossil fuel sector in the country aims to transition to a net-zero emissions basin by 2050, as part of its commitment to address climate change and help decarbonize the global economy.

Shearwater GeoServices Holding AS (‘Shearwater’) is pleased to announce the award by Apache of a 4D seismic survey with 3D extension over the Forties Field in the UK North Sea. The one-and-a-half-month project will be conducted by the Amazon Warrior starting in Q2 2020. In January, Shearwater announced multiple 4D surveys to be performed in the 2020 North Sea season.

Neptune Energy has conducted what is reportedly the “world’s first” dual drilling operation from an integrated subsea template structure at the Fenja field in the Norwegian North Sea. Neptune teams maximized the full capabilities of Seadrill’s West Phoenix drilling rig to drill two wellbores at the same time. This is a monumental step and can be adopted as a standard practice in the future.

UK-based offshore operator Neptune Energy is all set to rope in Dutch energy infrastructure firm, Gasunie on the PosHYdon green hydrogen project. Claimed to be the world’s first offshore green hydrogen pilot, PosHYdon will be developed in the Dutch region of the North Sea. The project is engineered to combine energy generated from offshore gas, offshore wind, and offshore hydrogen in the Dutch North Sea.

Subsea contractor, Ocean Installer has contracted Island Offshore's Island Victory deep-water installation vessel for work in the Barents Sea. The vessel will carry out development programmes on Askeladd and Johan Castberg fields, owned by Equinor. The work at Askeladd field includes the installation of subsea manifolds, apart from conducting surveys and other subsea activity. At Johan Castberg, the work includes the installation of a mooring system including suction anchors and chain.