Statoil has awarded a contract worth NOK 200 million to Aker Kværner for the delivery of a new generation of subsea pumps for seawater injection into the wells. This will boost oil production from the Tyrihans field in the Norwegian Sea by 10%.
The extra oil produced as a result of pressure support will have an added value of NOK 4 billion based on an oil price of USD 30 per barrel.
One of the largest subsea development projects on the Norwegian continental shelf so far, Tyrihans is scheduled to come on stream in 2009. The pumps, which will be located on the seabed, will come online the following year.
The plant consists of two purpose-built pumps that will inject 14,000 cubic metres of untreated seawater into the wells daily for pressure maintenance in the water zone of the reservoir.
”This is the first time such pumps are used on the NCS,” says Torstein Vinterstø, Tyrihans subsea project manager. “ The project is a step forward that will benefit other fields on the NCS and internationally.”
The pumps will be remote-controlled by means of a 40-kilometre power cable to be tied back to the Statoil-operated Kristin platform, where oil and gas from Tyrihans will be processed.
Thanks to new technology and the use of integrated operations it is possible to monitor the pumps from land, including for maintenance and replacement.
The Tyrihans development concept consists of five subsea templates to be tied back to the Kristin platform. The well stream will be transported through a 43-kilometre pipeline that will have direct electric heating in order to prevent hydrate and wax plug formation. Statoil is the first and, so far, only user in the world of direct electric pipeline heating. Fourteen of the group’s current facilities on the NCS utilise this method.
Statoil is the operator of Tyrihans and has a 46.8% interest in the field. The other licensees are Total (26.51%), Hydro (12%), Eni (7.9%) and ExxonMobil (6.75%).