Oil company Lundin Petroleum will indirectly supply energy to its offshore oil & gas production platforms off Norway from the 132MW Metsälamminkangas wind farm being developed by OX2 in northern Finland.

Lundin after it bought the wind project will use the output from 24 of GE Renewable Energy’s Cypress 5.5MW wind turbines to power the Johan Sverdrup and Edvard Grieg oil and gas fields, Lundin said, in the latest example of the growing trend to offset emissions on offshore oil fields using renewables.

“Alongside our existing hydroelectricity project in Norway, the Metsälamminkangas wind farm will enable us to replace a big share of our net electricity usage, powering our offshore Norway oil and gas production facilities,” said Alex Schneiter, president and chief executive officer at Lundin Petroleum.

As Lundin's oil and gas fields are off southern Norway, the power from the Finnish wind won't power the Johan Sverdrup and Edvard Grieg fields directly, but be fed into the Nordpool power system.

The oil and gas firm explained to Recharge it is replacing the same amount of power it withdraws from the Nordpool system for its oil and gas operations with renewable energy from elsewhere, such as Metsälamminkangas.

Lundin’s plans to power its offshore oil and gas activities with renewable electricity follow up on plans by Norway’s state-owned oil and gas giant Equinor to increasingly supply its fossil offshore exploration with renewable power via cable from land or from adjacent offshore wind farms.

Equinor has plans to use electricity from the 88MW floating Hywind Tampen floating array, and the the 350MW bottom-fixed Havsul 1 offshore wind project to power its Norwegian offshore oil and gas activities.

OX2 has acquired the project rights at the Metsälamminkangas site with high average wind speeds at the turbines hub heights of 7.2 metres per second in 2019.

The developer is building the wind farm as EPC contract and will also be entrusted with responsibility for the technical and commercial management of the farm. The facility is planned to be commissioned for Lundin Petroleum in December 2021 and is expected to produce approximately 400 gigawatt hours per year.

“This is our largest project to date in Finland, which has become one of the fastest growing markets for wind energy investment in Europe. We are pleased that we can offer an attractive non-fossil investment for Lundin Petroleum,” said OX2 chief executive Paul Stormoen.

OX2 is currently in total building 1.2 GW, including seven wind farms of approximately 340MW in Finland.

GE said its turbines for Metsälamminkangas will be equipped with an ice mitigation system in order to endure icing conditions for substantial parts of the year. The order comes with a multi-year service contract.

Installation will start in the second quarter of next year, and the turbines are slated to be fully commissioned by the end of 2021.

"OX2 is one of the biggest developers of wind farms in the Nordic region, and we are thrilled they've selected our brand-new Cypress platform," said Peter Wells, GE's chief executive for onshore wind in Europe.

UPATED with GE comment