LNG

Saipem, the Italian energy and LNG engineering company specializing in subsea work, has signed a letter of award with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc)  for a new contract related to the Hail and Ghasha natural gas development project in the United Arab Emirates.

Saipem said its share of the contract amounts to around $4.1 billion and has been awarded in consortium with the Abu Dhabi-based National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC).

The project is aimed at developing the resources of the Hail and Ghasha natural gas fields, located offshore Abu Dhabi.

The fields lie in the Ghasha Concession block in water depth of around 328 feet and are expected to start commercial production in the next couple of years.

Saipem said the project scope of work encompassed the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of four drilling centres and one processing plant to be built on artificial islands, as well as various offshore structures and more than 300 kilometres (187 miles) of subsea pipelines.

Integrated

“The award is in line with Saipem’s unique capability to deliver integrated onshore and offshore projects, providing its clients with a single and reliable interface for complex full-field developments,” said the Milan-based company.

“Saipem will leverage on its state-of-the-art shallow water offshore vessels, its advanced welding technology for corrosion resistant materials, as well as its renowned engineering expertise,” Saipem added.

“This award reinforces Saipem’s long-standing relationship with ADNOC and further consolidates the company’s presence in Abu Dhabi, which includes an Engineering and Project Execution Centre, as well as a new Offshore Logistic base in Zayed Port,” Saipem explained. 

ADNOC’s partners in the Hail and Ghasha gas development with a concession term of 40 years include Italy’s Eni, Germany’s Wintershall Dea and Austria’s OMV.

The multi-billion-dollar Hail and Ghasha project is also seen as playing a vital role in meeting the UAE’s gas self-sufficiency objectives.

It also comes at a time when a second UAE LNG production project plant is being developed at Al Ruwais Industrial City. The Ruwais LNG project consists of two 4.8 million metric tonnes annum liquefaction Trains with a total nameplate capacity of 9.6 MTPA.

The existing liquefaction plant on Das Island in the Arabian Gulf currently has export capacity of 6 MTPA. 

Argentina is moving forward with more natural gas production both onshore and offshore with LNG market participant, the French major TotalEnergies, announcing the start of drilling at the Fenix gas field off the southern Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego.

Equinor, the operator of the Hammerfest LNG export plant in northern Norway, said that a gas leak occurred at the facility on Melkøya Island on May 31 and had been stopped, though it was too early to say when production would resume.

“Equinor’s emergency response organisation has been demobilised and the emergency services have left Melkøya,” said Equinor.

“The leak occurred in connection with a valve in one of the plant’s cooling circuits,” Equinor explained.

“The gas that leaked is used for cooling during production of LNG,” the company added.

Equinor’s emergency response organisation was immediately mobilised to face the incident and it was handled in collaboration with emergency services.

“Relevant authorities were notified. There were 98 people present at the plant when the incident occurred. All personnel are accounted for and no injuries were reported,” stated Equinor.

“It is too soon to say when production at the plant can be resumed,” Equinor added.

Fire recovery

A fire had previously occurred at the Hammerfest plant on September 28 in 2020 and led to a prolonged closure for repairs until mid-2022.

No one was hurt in the 2020 fire and much of the damage to the plant was caused by the sustained use of high-powered hoses to suppress the fire and stop it re-igniting.

Equinor concluded shortly afterwards that a fire had started in the filter housing of a gas turbine generator.

The fire investigation noted that the cause of the fire was spontaneous ignition in the filters in the turbine’s air inlets, caused by excessively high temperatures over a long period of time.

Feed-gas for the single-Train Hammerfest liquefaction facility comes from the Snøhvit gas field in the Barents Sea.

Hammerfest exports around 4.70 million tonnes of LNG and most of the volumes are delivered to European destinations like France, Spain, the Netherlands and Lithuania.

Most feed-gas for Hammerfest comes from a total of 20 wells in the Snøhvit and Albatross fields.

This output is transported to land through a 143-kilometre (89-mile) pipeline.

Equinor has 37 percent of the Snøhvit field and the LNG plant and the other large partners include French major TotalEnergies and Germany’s Wintershall Dea.

The Norwegian parliament, the Storting, has ordered the government to consider an alternative way to cut carbon emissions at Western Europe's largest liquefied natural gas export plant at Hammerfest and to consider the use of carbon capture instead of electrification.

Jan 18 (LNGJ) - Equinor, the Norwegian LNG and pipeline natural gas supplier for Europe, has made a commercial gas discovery in the Norwegian Sea with between 2 billion cubic metres and 11 Bcm of recoverable gas, or about 12.6-69.2 million barrels of oil equivalent.

   Exploration wells in the Norwegian Sea were drilled by the “Deepsea Stavanger” drilling rig about 23 kilometres (14 miles) south of the previous Irpa gas discovery. Equnor’s field partners are Norway’s state-run energy body Petoro and German oil and gas company Wintershall Dea. “We will together with our partners consider a tie-back of this discovery to Irpa, for which we recently submitted a plan for development and operation,” said Grete B. Haaland, Equinor’s Vice President for Exploration and Production North.

The bankruptcy procedure for Nord Stream II AG, the Swiss-based operator of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, was extended by six more months until July 2023, according to the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce.

Wintershall Dea, the company viewed as Germany’s national oil and gas player and which is a shareholder in the Norwegian-run Hammerfest LNG export project, has submitted a plan for development of the Dvalin North gas field in the Norwegian Sea to help boost pipelines gas supplies for Europe.

Equinor, the Norwegian oil and gas company, is boosting the feed-gas supplies from another field in the Barents Sea to produce more LNG from the Hammerfest plant on Melkøya Island in northern Norway.

Equinor, the leading European pipeline natural gas and LNG supplier from the Norwegian Continental Shelf, has submitted a plan of development for a gas field to boost supplies to the UK and the European Union.

Equinor said its plan had gone to the Norwegian Minister for Petroleum and Energy for the Irpa gas discovery, formerly known as the Asterix field.

The Irpa gas field is in the Vøring Basin in the Norwegian Sea, located about 80 kilometres west of the world’s largest spar platform, the Aasta Hansteen platform, and 340km west of Bodø in Norway’s Nordland county just north of the Arctic Circle.

Equinor, which owns 51 percent of the field, explained that the discovery was proven way back in 2009 and contains 19.3 billion standard cubic metres of natural gas

The company’s partners in the venture include the Norwegian state firm Petoro, Shell plc and Germany’s Wintershall DEA.

“The Irpa discovery will be developed with three wells and an 80-km long tie-back pipeline to Aasta Hansteen in water depths of 1,350 metres,” explained Equinor.

Cost

The Norwegian company and the other shareholders intend to spend 14.8 billion Norwegian crowns ($1.44Bln) to bring the field on stream in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Equinor said that there would be joint production from Irpa and Aasta Hansteen through 2031 and then the Irpa field would continue to produce until 2039.

“This is a good day and the development of Irpa will contribute to predictable and long-term deliveries of gas to customers in the European Union and the UK,” declared  Geir Tungesvik, Equinor’s executive vice president for Projects, Drilling and Procurement.

The company explained that the gas will be phased into existing infrastructure over Aasta Hansteen and transported to the Nyhamna gas processing plant via Polarled.

From there, gas will be transported via the Langeled pipeline system to customers in the UK and continental Europe.

“The development shows that near-field exploration and utilisation of existing infrastructure provides good resource utilisation on the NCS,” said Grete Birgitte Haaland, senior vice president for Exploration and Production North at Equinor.

“Irpa will maintain existing jobs at Aasta Hansteen, at the supply base in Sandnessjøen, at the helicopter base in Brønnøysund and at the operations centre in Harstad,” she stated.

TotalEnergies has approved the final investment decision for the Fénix gas development offshore LNG importer Argentina in partnership with Germany’s main oil and gas company Wintershall Dea.