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NEWS
Production starts from gas field Devenick
RWE Dea UK has announced the delivery of the first gas from the Devenick field in the central North Sea. The field contains around 430 billion standard cubic feet of gas in place (11.6 billion standard cubic metres) and is part of RWE Dea’s growth strategy in the United Kingdom.
BPe Devenick gas project, which was approved by the government in late 2010, came on stream at an initial rate of 100 million standard cubic feet per day (2.69 million standard cubic metres). RWE Dea holds 11.3% interest in the Devenick gas field with BP as operator holding the remaining 88.7%.
The Devenick field contains an estimated 430 billion standard cubic feet of gas in place (11.6 billion standard cubic metres) and production is expected to last until the year 2025. The Devenick development connects gas production from a subsea manifold through highly insulated flowlines and high pressure control and safety systems to Marathon’s East Brae platform located 34 kilometres to the south of the field. From the East Brae platform the gas is exported to the UK gas grid via the SAGE pipeline system and the terminal at St Fergus.
“I am particularly pleased that we have undertaken this challenging development without any incidents and just under two years from securing government sanction,” says Rene Pawel, managing director RWE Dea UK. Visit: www.rwe.com
Major milestone for BP in UK’s central North Sea
BP has announced completion of a major milestone on its Kinnoull project in the UK’s central North Sea. On 14 October the new 700-tonne processing unit for the Kinnoull and Andrew Lower Cretaceous reservoirs, built in Hartlepool, England, was successfully installed on to BP’s Andrew platform, 230 kilometres north-west of Aberdeen.
The Kinnoull field is one of three reservoirs that are being developed as part of the rejuvenation of the Andrew area. The reservoir will be connected to BP’s Andrew platform and will enable production there to be extended by a further decade.
Trevor Garlick, regional president for BP’s North Sea business said: “The Kinnoull project is significant to the North Sea business, and wider BP, and is a clear example of the company’s strategy in action. Advances in our understanding of the reservoir structure, deployment of the very latest in UK subsea engineering skills and a major upgrade of the Andrew platform are key success factors of this development.” Visit: www.bp.com
Plan for Arctic drilling platform
Rosneft and ExxonMobil have selected Vostochniy Offshore Structures Construction Yard to conduct a concept evaluation and feasibility study for a platform capable of safely exploring Kara Sea’s shallow waters. Key attributes of the platform concept are safety and environmental protection measures for operating in Arctic conditions and the ability to withstand extreme ice, wind, wave and temperature conditions.
The study will evaluate the feasibility of utilising a gravity base structure that could extend the drilling season by several months. Designed to operate in up to 60 metres (200 feet) of water, the structure with drilling equipment would be installed on the seabed to drill a well and then would be refloated and moved to other drilling sites. Visit: www.exxonmobil.com or www.rosneft.com
Foundation stone laid for the Dunkirk LNG terminal
The Dunkirk LNG terminal is expected to be commissioned towards the end of 2015 and is the second largest industrial construction site in France after the EPR site at Flamanville.
The terminal will be able to accommodate the world’s largest LNG tankers and will have sufficient capacity for 13 billion cubic metres of gas per year, the equivalent of 20% of the annual natural gas consumption of France and Belgium combined.
With its three liquefied natural gas storage tanks, the terminal will offer the network increased flexibility to supply gas-fired power stations which are able to meet peak electricity demands, especially in the winter months. In environmental terms, EDF has opted to heat the liquefied natural gas using a zero carbon method based partly on hot water discharged by the Gravelines nuclear plant, thus ensuring that the terminal is at the forefront of energy efficiency developments. Visit: www.edf.com
NEWS
New developments in the Energy industry
Vattenfall and SWM commission accommodation platform
From 2014 onwards, quiet rooms with a shower, internet access and a TV will make everyday life more comfortable for the members of the DanTysk Wind Farm maintenance team – right in the middle of the harsh North Sea. Vattenfall and the Stadtwerke Munich have now commissioned the Schleswig-Holstein based company Nobiskrug, whose headquarters is in Rendsburg, to build the offshore accommodation platform. The platform will be built in the Abu Dhabi MAR dockyard Kiel. The beginning of construction work is scheduled for spring 2013; the platform should then be erected on the DanTysk wind farm 70 km from Sylt in autumn 2014. The platform will be able to cater for up to 50 people and will be in use 365 days a year.
“Anyone who’s experienced the harsh climate of the North Sea, with its strong winds and waves, will understand the importance of good working and living conditions for the maintenance teams on site. In Germany we’re facing particular challenges because offshore wind farms are located up to 100 kilometres from the coast,” explains Holger Grubel, head of the DanTysk project. “At these distances it simply isn’t possible for crews to commute by ship every day.” Visit: www.vattenfall.com
The Bovanenkovo oil and gas condensate field has launched commercial gas production in the new large gas-bearing region – the Yamal Peninsula. The first startup complexes of the Bovanenkovo field and the Bovanenkovo–Ukhta gas trunkline systems have been commissioned.
The Yamal gas production centre is replacing the Nadym-Pur-Taz region, which has been the national gas production leader for more than 40 years. The Yamal Peninsula and adjacent offshore areas have great potential: the explored gas reserves with estimated and prospective resources total 26.5 trillion cubic metres. This will make it possible to produce up to 360 billion cubic metres of gas annually by 2030. In the next few decades the increasing gas consumption in Russia and abroad will be satisfied mainly by the Yamal Peninsula. Visit: www.gazprom.com
Gazprom launches commercial gas production in Yamal Peninsula E.ON starts construction of power-to-gas pilot plant in Germany
Construction of E.ON’s new pilot plant to enable wind power to be stored in the gas grid is now underway. The plant will be built in Falkenhagen, located in north-east Germany. From 2013 onwards the power-to-gas plant will handle excess power that is generated by wind farms and cannot be fed into the power grid. By storing the excess power, wind farms, which would otherwise be shut down for a while to avoid bottlenecks in the power grid, can continue to generate power.
The plant works by using electrolysis. In the process about 360m2 of hydrogen is produced per hour. This hydrogen can then be treated like natural gas. Once the process is complete, it can be fed into the regional gas grid where it is then available for producing heat and power.
Power-to-gas technology is particularly attractive because of the large storage capacity offered by existing gas infrastructure. Owing to gas regulations, at the moment only a small amount of hydrogen gas can be fed into the gas infrastructure. To expand the energy storage potential, the next step is to convert hydrogen into synthetic gas. Theoretically, this means that the entire storage capacity of the gas grid could be utilised. Visit: www.eon.com
GDF SUEZ inaugurates Estreito hydro power plant in Brazil
GDF SUEZ, through its subsidiary Tractebel Energia, has announced the inauguration of a new 1087MW hydroelectric power plant at Estreito in Brazil. Estreito is owned by Tractebel Energia (40.07%), Vale (30%), Alcoa (25.49%) and Intercement (4.4%). Tractebel Energia is responsible for the operational management on behalf of the consortium.
Gerard Mestrallet, chairman and CEO of GDF SUEZ: “Brazil is at the heart of our Group’s strategy in Latin America. As the leading private power producer in Brazil, we believe that our Brazilian portfolio provides an excellent base to achieve sustainable and profitable growth.”
Estreito is located on the Tocantins river between the states of Tocantins and Maranhao, downstream from the Sao Salvador (243MW) and Cana Brava (450MW) hydro plants which are both owned and operated by Tractebel Energia. The total capacity of the plant is sufficient to meet the energy needs of 4 million people. Visit: www.gdfsuez.com
INDUSTRYNEWS
Major construction begins on the Prelude FLNG project
Shell has celebrated the cutting of first steel for the game-changing Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility’s substructure with joint venture participants Inpex and KOGAS, and lead contractor, the Technip Samsung Consortium, at Samsung Heavy Industries’ Geoje shipyard in South Korea.
Shell’s Projects & Technology director Matthias Bichsel commented: “We are cutting 7.6 tonnes of steel for the Prelude floating liquefied natural gas facility today, but in total more than 260,000 tonnes of steel will be fabricated and assembled for the facility. That’s around five times the amount of steel used to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Today’s ceremony marks a major milestone in this project, when the innovative thinking and new technology and engineering solutions which will make FLNG possible begin to be realised.”
When completed, the Prelude FLNG facility will be 488 metres long and 74 metres wide, making it the largest offshore floating facility ever built. When fully equipped and with its cargo tanks full, it will weigh more than 600,000 tonnes. There will be over 3000 kilometres of electrical and instrumentation cables on the FLNG facility, the distance from Barcelona to Moscow. Visit: www.shell.com
More offshore wind farms for Scotland
Seagreen Wind Energy Ltd has submitted applications to the Scottish Government for consent to build and operate two 525 Megawatt (MW) offshore wind farms in Phase 1 of its Firth of Forth Offshore Wind Zone. Seagreen is a joint venture partnership between SSE Renewables and Fluor Limited.
The Phase 1 applications are for two separate offshore wind farms, Project Alpha and Project Bravo, located 27km and 38km respectively at their closest points from the Angus coastline. The wind farms would each have a maximum capacity of 525 MW and accommodate up to 75 wind turbines and supporting infrastructure including subsea cables, offshore substation platforms and meteorological masts. The subsea cables will transmit the power produced by the projects to a landfall point at Camoustie on the Angus Coast. Visit: www.seagreenwindenergy.com
LNG terminal for ship fuelling in the Port of Hamburg
Bomin Linde LNG GmbH & Co. KG has been concentrating on the implementation of initial projects to build storage and refuelling infrastructure for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in several European ports. The first specific step taken by the joint venture of Linde Group and Bomin, a subsidiary of Marquard & Bahls AG, is the construction of a terminal for fuelling ships with LNG in the Port of Hamburg. Potential methods of implementation are presently being evaluated in order to comply with the legal approval criteria necessary to set up a so-called small scale LNG terminal on the Marquard & Bahls subsidiary Oiltanking premises in the Hamburg port. LNG has a very promising future as an alternative ship fuel. As of 2015, the limits on sulphur emissions will be reduced significantly for shipping in the North and Baltic Seas. Visit: www.the-linde-group.com
Total exchanges assets with ExxonMobil in the North Sea
Total has announced an exchange of interests with ExxonMobil in a range of producing and undeveloped North Sea assets on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
In exchange for its interests in the PL089 license (5.6%) and the Sygna (2.52%), Statfjord ÿst (2.8%) and Snorre (6.18%) fields, Total will receive from ExxonMobil its 4.7% interest in the Oseberg field and its 4.33% interest in the Oseberg transportation system, together with its interests in the PL029c license (100%) and the PL029b license (30%), which contain part of the Dagny field. In addition, a minor cash compensation will also be paid by Total to ExxonMobil. Oseberg is one of the largest oil and gas fields in the Norwegian North Sea, and includes a number of satellite fields currently under development. Dagny reserves are estimated by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) to be 205 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and the Final Investment Decision (FID) of the field development is expected before the end of 2012. Visit: www.total.com
