A contract worth NOK 75 million to supply CTour treatment plants for produced water to Statoil’s Statfjord A and B platforms in the North Sea has been awarded to Fabricom in Stavanger.
“Trials on Statfjord B have shown that this new solution cuts hydrocarbon residues by 70 per cent compared with traditional treatment methods,” says Harald Torvik, discipline leader for treatment and environmental technology.
The units from Fabricom will accordingly make an important contribution to meeting government requirements for zero harmful discharges from Norwegian offshore fields by 2005.
In addition to detail design and planning, the Stavanger company will be responsible for piping fabrication, installation and field testing of the systems before the end of next year.
CTour Process Systems AS, a company owned 50 per cent by Statoil, holds the patent rights to the new technology.
The solution involves using the condensate (light oil) produced on each platform to “wash” hydrocarbons out of the produced water.
This offers one of several effective methods for treating such water, explains Asbjørn Skoge, project manager for CTour implementation in the Tampen area of the North Sea.
Since fields present different properties and challenges, each licence must analyse which solutions are best suited to dealing with its produced water, he notes.
“CTour is a good solution for Statfjord, partly because the water cut there is very high and partly because it is self-sufficient in condensate for the process.
“The treatment units are also small, and space on the field’s platforms is at a premium.”
Statoil is currently studying whether CTour facilities should be placed on some of the other fields it operates.