[Norway] Njord

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escveritas
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[Norway] Njord

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March 22, 2022

Aker Solutions Delivers Njord A Platform

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Following several years of extensive upgrades, the drilling and production platform Njord A is ready for handover to Equinor. Towing it back to the field has started today, March 22.

The project has provided more than 6,000 man-years in Norway and the Norwegian share of value creation from the project has been around 95 percent.

Njord A has been described as Norway's largest renovation project. After the contract was signed on March 17, 2017, significant upgrades have been carried out on the hull and the platform deck to extend its lifetime for another 20 years of production.

"A refurbishment project is never easy, especially at this size and complexity, and with the addition of having to be carried out in the middle of a pandemic with a shortage of labor and a strict infection control regime. This makes me even more proud that we have now reached this important milestone. However, I am most proud that we have carried out this large scope of work at our Stord yard without a single serious injury to either people or material," said Sturla Magnus, executive vice president and head of Aker Solutions' topside and facilities business.

The upgrade of Njord A has been a project with very high local content in Norway. The engineering was performed mainly by Aker Solutions' offices in Bergen, Stavanger, Fornebu and Trondheim. The construction has been carried out at the company’s yards at Stord and Verdal. Close to 400 different supplier companies have been involved in the project, most of them Norwegian.

"Njord A is now ready for several decades of energy production and value creation for the greater society. The project has had significant ripple effects, contributing to a lot of activity both for Aker Solutions and a large number of supplier companies which in various ways have contributed to the project," said Magnus.

The Njord A contract was a groundbreaking undertaking in the Norwegian oil and gas industry when it was originally signed in 2017, being the first time a production platform on the Norwegian continental shelf was transported to shore for complete overhaul and upgrades. This has been reflected in terms of the increased scope and duration of the project during the project period. In 2018, an additional contract was awarded to Aker Solutions to prepare the platform for receiving oil and gas from the Fenja field, which entailed additional manufacturing and installation work on the platform. The company has also been tasked to assist Equinor in the offshore hook-up work preparing it for the start of production in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Njord A was originally delivered by Aker Solutions in September 1997. The platform deck was manufactured and assembled at the Stord yard, while the hull was constructed at the Verdal yard. Njord A was the first EPC contract on the Norwegian continental shelf following the implementation of the NORSOK standard in the mid-90s.

In recent weeks, the platform has been in Klosterfjorden on the west coast of Norway, conducting various sea trials.

"The sea trials are now complete, and we are on schedule for delivery and tow out to the field. Compared to the original version of the platform delivered in 1997, it is a quite different platform that is now ready to be transported back to the Njord field. Hardly any part of the platform has remained untouched, and the total dead weight has increased by 23 percent. The upgrades on the hull have increased the platform's buoyancy by 24 percent, and the payload capacity on the platform deck has increased by 31 percent," said Carl van der Hagen, project director at Aker Solutions, who was also involved in the construction of the original platform in the 90s.
escveritas
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Re: [Norway] Njord

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The Njord field upgraded and ready for another 20 years

28 DECEMBER 2022

Production from the Njord field in the Norwegian Sea resumed at 16.30 on 27 December, following an upgrading project in which both the platform and the floating storage and offloading vessel (FSO) were brought ashore.

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The field is now back on stream, ensuring secure and stable energy supplies to Europe.

Both the platform and the FSO have undergone extensive upgrades, and the project has a Norwegian content of more than 90 percent. Aker Solutions has had the main responsibility for the platform engineering and upgrading. Brevik Engineering has carried out the engineering work for the FSO, which has been upgraded by Aibel.

“I am proud that we and our partners, Wintershall Dea and Neptune Energy, have now got this truly unique project across the finish line. This is the first time a platform and a FSO have been disconnected from the field, upgraded, and towed back, and we have now doubled the field’s life.It has been a big and challenging job, partly performed during a pandemic, and I want to thank everyone who has contributed. The Njord field will now deliver important volumes to the market for another two decades," says Geir Tungesvik, Equinor's executive vice president for Projects, Drilling & Procurement.

Coming on stream in 1997, the Njord installations were initially designed to remain in operation until 2013. However, there were large volumes left in the ground, in addition to discoveries nearby, such as Hyme which came into operation in 2013, and others that can be produced and exported via Njord.

The platform and FSO were brought ashore in 2016 after 19 years of production. In 2017 and 2018, upgrading contracts were awarded for the two installations. The Njord A platform was upgraded at Stord, where it was constructed in the 90s. The Njord Bravo FSO was inspected prior to upgrade and prepared for tow-out in Kristiansund, whereas the refurbishment was carried out in Haugesund.

“Our ambition is to produce about the same volume from Njord and Hyme as we have produced so far, more than 250 million barrels of oil equivalent," says Kjetil Hove, Equinor's executive vice president for Exploration & Production Norway.

10 new wells will be drilled at Njord from an upgraded drilling facility, new discoveries have been made at the outer edges of Njord, and more exploration will be carried out in the surrounding area.In addition, the platform and FSO have been prepared to receive production from two new subsea fields, Bauge and Fenja, with a total of 110 million barrels of recoverable resources.

“This is illustrative of our strategic work on the NCS to extend the fields’ productive life and tying back new discoveries to existing infrastructure, while reducing the climate footprint from the production," says Hove.

According to plans the Njord field will in a few years receive power from shore via the Draugen platform in the Norwegian Sea and be partially electrified. This will reduce the annual CO2 emissions by about 130,000 tonnes.

Production from the Njord field was initially supposed to resume two years ago. However, the upgrading project has been more challenging than expected, and the project was hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. This has also put an upward pressure on costs. Capital expenditures total just over NOK 31 billion (2022), compared with the original NOK 17 billion in the plan for development and operation.However, the project is profitable with oil prices far lower than today.

Njord facts
  • The Njord licensees are Wintershall Dea Norge AS (50 percent), Equinor Energy AS (27.5 percent, operator) and Neptune Energy Norge AS (22.5 percent).
  • Njord is located in the Norwegian Sea, 30 kilometres west of Draugen, and 130 kilometres northwest of Kristiansund. The water depth is 330 metres.
  • Discovered in 1986, Njord came on stream in 1997. The Hyme subsea field was tied back to Njord in 2013.
  • Produced oil is transported by pipeline to the Njord Bravo FSO, and onwards by tankers to the market.
  • Gas from the field is exported through a 40-kilometre pipeline connected to the Åsgard transportation system (ÅTS), and from there to the Kårstø terminal.
  • The subsea fields Bauge (operated by Equinor) and Fenja (operated by Neptune) have been developed in parallel with the upgrading of the Njord installations. The recoverable resources in two fields total 50 and 60 million barrels of oil equivalent, respectively.
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