Norway's Equinor and partners of the Gullfaks and Snorre fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) agreed to explore the possibilities of supplying the fields with power from floating offshore wind, the company said on Tuesday.
Equinor said this could be the first time an offshore wind farm is directly connected to an oil and gas platform.
According to Equinor, the project forecasts a reduction of carbon emissions by more than 200,000 tonnes per year, equivalent to the emissions from 100,000 cars.
"Equinor has performed an extensive study evaluating which oil and gas installations on the NCS are suited for power supply from a floating offshore wind farm. The Snorre and Gullfaks fields in the Tampen area in the northern North Sea are the best match for realizing this idea," Equinor's statement said.
"Reducing the use of gas turbines by supplying platforms with power from floating offshore wind is a challenging and innovative project. It may also facilitate new industrial opportunities for Norway, Equinor and Norwegian supply industry within profitable renewable energy, while enabling oil and gas production with low carbon emissions," said Equinor’s Executive Vice President for New Energy Solutions, Pal Eitrheim.
For the Gullfaks license, Equinor's partners are Petoro and OMV. The company's partners for the Snorre license are Petoro, ExxonMobil, Idemitsu, DEA Norge and Point Resources.
By Murat Temizer
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr
