Production has resumed at the Goliat field early Tuesday morning (27 September), in the Norwegian Barents Sea, according to operator Eni Norge. Eni says full production is expected to be reached shortly, with full reinjection of gas and produced water.
Production was halted on 26 August, caused by gas detection in an unwanted area, Eni says, during a planned venting of gas, as part of a maintenance operation. This led to an automatic power shutdown to eliminate ignition sources, in line with emergency and safety routines. During the power shut down, non-essential crew was evacuated as per procedure due to limited power supply.
The incident was investigated internally and necessary organizational and technical improvement measures put in place, Eni says.
The 180 MMbo field, the first producing oil field in the Barents Sea and the northernmost producing oilfield, achieved first production in March this year. Goliat is expected to produce 100,000 b/d once all 22 of its subsea wells (12 production and seven water and gas injection wells) are onstream.
The 360-420m water depth project is based on a powered-from-shore, via subsea cable, cylindrical floating production facility, sitting 85km northwest of Hammerfest, offshore Norway. The 107m diameter, 64,000-tonne, 1 MMbo storage capacity Sevan 1000-design FPSO, moored using 14 anchor lines, was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea. It was designed to be manned by about 40 staff and to be operated out of Hammerfest.
The Goliat development experienced several setbacks on its way to first oil, from weather delays to “increasing complexity” on the production platform, and cost-overruns. Reuters reported that in September 2015 that project costs had surged to then-NOK 46.7 billion from an original estimate of around NOK 30 billion in 2009, when the development plan was approved.
Eni Norge is operator of the field (65%) with Statoil as partner (35%).
Image: Goliat FPSO, from Eni Norge.
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