TotalEnergies will use a floating wind turbine to supply about 20% of the power required by its Culzean platform in the UK North Sea.
The operator announced the pilot decarbonization project on 29 August.
Marie-Noelle Semeria, chief technology officer at TotalEnergies, said in a press release the pilot project aims to prove the concept of hybridized power generation on an offshore facility by integrating electricity from the floating turbine with the existing power generation from gas turbines. Additionally, she said, the project aims to qualify “a promising floater design for the future of floating offshore wind.”
TotalEnergies secured the seabed rights in March 2023 through the Scottish Crown Estate Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas (INTOG) process, designed to encourage and support the use of offshore wind energy to directly supply offshore oil and gas platforms. The Culzean wind project will be the first of 13 INTOG projects selected that year to be deployed, according to Ocergy, which is designing the semisubmersible hull for the floating wind turbine.
Ocergy said in a 28 August release that the project has entered the final stages of engineering, and first steel cut is less than 2 months away.
An OCG-Wind unit will be fitted with a V112 3-MW Vestas turbine.
The 3-MW floating wind turbine will be located 2 km west of the Culzean platform and is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2025.
“This pilot installation meets an important technical qualification milestone for Ocergy,” Alexia Aubault, Ocergy chief technology officer, said in a press release.
She said the pilot will demonstrate that the lighter, fully modular design can reduce time and cost of building floating foundations.
Archer Wind, an early investor in Ocergy’s technology, won its first contract and will deliver the floating wind foundation for the project.
Archer said in a 29 August press release that detailed engineering is in progress and that the company is engaging key fabrication and assembly subcontractors to ensure timely execution of the project.
TotalEnergies became the operator of the Culzean gas condensate field in Block 22/25a in the Central North Sea through the 2018 acquisition of Maersk Oil.
Originally discovered in 2008, the field holds estimated resources of 250 to 300 million BOE. The high-pressure, high-temperature gas condensate field is made up of two reservoirs 4300 m below sea level. Culzean has three offshore platforms, linked together with bridges.The first platform is used for drilling and hydrocarbon production, the second for processing and export of produced gas and condensate, and the last for the crew’s living quarters.
Gas from Culzean is exported via the CATS pipeline and the UK National Grid whilst condensate is stored in the Ailsa floating storage and offloading vessel for offloading by shuttle tanker. The Ailsa, which can store up to 430,000 barrels of oil equivalent of condensate. Production from Culzean started in June 2019.
