Two shuttle tankers shipping oil for Statoil from Norwegian fields are to be equipped with systems which reduce their emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
This marks the first investment in such recovery technology on vessels in ordinary operation as part of efforts to reduce the negative impact of these emissions on the climate.
Ugland’s Juanita and Navion’s Knock An transport crude from Statfjord and Gullfaks in the North Sea.
Statoil has been working since the early 1990s to find solutions for reducing the amount of VOCs vaporising from offshore cargoes.
Together with a number of other companies, it has already invested in pilot projects on Knutsen OAS Shipping’s Anna Knutsen and Navion’s Navion Viking.
According to project manager Jan Terje Mathisen, Statoil is adopting the best available technology for such VOC recovery installations.
The group has signed a letter of intent with Kværner on delivery of non-methane VOC (nmVOC) plants.
These make it possible to recover light hydrocarbons – such as ethane, propane and butane – which vaporise from crude oil during offshore loading, and return them to the cargo.
Statoil is considering similar measures for other fields which it operates, and looking at other ways of reducing VOC emissions.