Video: Statoil installs Oseberg unmanned platform

Published Aug 14, 2017 7:00 pm ET

Statoil installed its first unmanned wellhead platform, the Oseberg H for its Oseberg Vestflanken 2 on the Norwegian Continental Shelf this summer.

Oseberg Vestflanken 2 installation. Image from Statoil.

Oseberg H’s topside is a lean concept that weighs 1100-tonne, compared to the Mariner’s 38,000-tonne topside, which the Norwegian giant also installed recently in July.

Just 16 months after the contract was awarded, the jacket and topside sailed on the river from Heerema in Zwijndrecht to Rotterdam and on to the North Sea.

The concept for the unmanned wellhead platform, which Statoil calls “probably the simplest platform on the NCS," got its development and operations approved, without comments, by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, and the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority.

The Oseberg Vestflanken 2 project is expected to tap about 110 MMboe in the North Sea.

The project consists of an unmanned wellhead platform with 10 well slots; in addition to two existing subsea wells that will be reused. All wells will be controlled remotely 8mi away from the Oseberg field center, and the well stream will be routed to the Oseberg field via a new pipeline, with production anticipated for Q2 2018. The wells at Oseberg Vestflanken 2 will be drilled by the new category J rig Askepott, which is currently under construction.

During the drilling of wells all facilities will be available on the rig, and when the platform is onstream, there will be only one or two maintenance visits a year. A purpose-built vessel will then be bridge-linked to the platform, and all facilities will be available on the vessel. The same type of vessel will be used at the Dudgeon wind farm in the UK, Statoil says.

The Oseberg Field Center includes three platforms, Oseberg A, B and D, connected to one another with bridges, in the southern part of the Oseberg field, and the Oseberg C platform, which lies 14km north of the field center.