Equinor’s experience with the Hywind Tampen floating wind project to power offshore oil and gas installations will provide “informed decision making” in developing the Rosebank oilfield in the UK North Sea, a company executive said.
Addressing a panel discussion in Aberdeen during Offshore Europe 2023, Equinor's senior vice president UK & Ireland, Arne Gurtner, said the company had gained valuable know-how with floating wind infrastructure deployed primarily to provide power generation to offshore platforms.
In the Norwegian North Sea, the Hywind Tampen project installed 88MW of offshore wind power capacity on floating structures to deliver electricity to its Snorre and Gullfaks oil and gas facilities in the area.
Through this method, Gurtner said the company managed to decarbonise production “to an extent – considerably but not fully”.
Equinor estimated the floating wind project can cover some 35% of the annual power demand of five platforms – Snorre A and B, and Gullfaks A, B and C.
This approach can be useful in the planning of the Rosebank oilfield, which Equinor is developing in the UK North Sea, said Gurtner.
Industry expectations are for the project – the largest undeveloped oilfield in the UK – to reach a final investment decision potentially this year.
“[Hywind Tampen] provides another proof of concept, a pilot we can [replicate],” he said.
“That’s of course relevant to Rosebank, where we are looking at various forms of power sources [to minimise production emissions],” Gurtner said.
This article first appeared on Upstream. Follow all the Upstream news from Offshore Europe here.
