SLB has scooped a contract award from Equinor for the front-end engineering design (FEED) of a 12-well, all-electric subsea production system (SPS) project in the Fram Sør field offshore Norway. As part of the agreement, future engineering, procurement, and construction will be directly awarded to SLB OneSubsea conditional on a final investment decision.
The Fram Sør project is the first application to be implemented resulting from a joint industry project which began in 2018 and involved close collaboration across major industry players to accelerate the development of breakthrough electrification technology through a standardized industry solution.
According to SLB, basing the design on an established standard enables efficient and economic scaling of subsea electrification for operators worldwide, bringing associated Capex and Opex benefits.
The project could help fast-track wide-scale global adoption of electric subsea technology, setting new standards for increased operator control, subsea operational efficiency, and reduced offshore emissions.
“Electrification is vital to the future of subsea operations in the energy transition,” said Mads Hjelmeland, CEO of SLB OneSubsea. “This technology has effectively created the IoT for subsea trees, providing operators with improved control through live performance and condition monitoring. We are grateful for the collaboration with Equinor and the other joint-industry partners over the past 6 years that has made this milestone possible.”
The Fram Sør solution will use SLB OneSubsea’s standard subsea tree design, upgraded with a fully electrified power, control, and actuation system. The elimination of high-pressure hydraulic systems will enable operators to go further and deeper, improving production and making even marginal fields more viable, according to a press release.
The Fram Sør development consists of several different discoveries including Blasto and Echino Sør/Dermata. The fields are located north of Troll and and close to the Fram Area fields in the northern North Sea. The 12 subsea wells will be tied back to the Troll C platform for processing and export.
The Blasto find was made in March 2021. Exploration wells 31/2-22 S and 31/2-22 A in production licenses 090, 090 I, and 090 E were drilled about 3 km southwest of the Fram field, 11 km northwest of the Troll field. The well 31/2-22S encountered oil in sandstones in the Upper Jurassic Sognefjord and Fensfjord formations. Preliminary estimates placed the size of the discovery between 75 and 120 million BOE of recoverable resource.
In 2019, Equinor discovered oil and gas in the Echino Sør exploration well, 35/11-23, drilled 3 km southwest of the Fram field. Hydrocarbons were proven in both the upper and middle Jurassic reservoirs. A sidetrack (well 35/11-23 A) was drilled to delineate the discovery in the Sognefjord formation. Recoverable resources are estimated at between 44 and 100 million BOE.
