Statoil and its licence partners have chosen an unmanned wellhead platform as the concept for the Oseberg Future development phase I project in the North Sea.
The platform will be controlled from the Oseberg field centre and three concept studies have been made.
It will have no living quarters, helicopter deck or lifeboats.
Anders Opedal, senior vice president of projects in Statoil, said:“The alternative was to place the wells on the seabed, but the costs of subsea wells have been tripled during the last decade.
“We have therefore chosen a jacket-based unmanned wellhead platform that will reduce costs by several hundred million NOK.”
Statoil said it wants to use service vessels connected to the wellhead platform by gangways during maintenance campaigns after the jack-up drilling platform has completed its well drilling operations.
The company said unmanned wellhead platforms without facilities, helicopter deck and lifeboats represent a new concept in Norway, but they have been used for some time internationally, for example on the Danish and Dutch continental shelves.
All facilities will be found on the support vessel, with shorter distance for lifeboats and helicopter decks than on big installations.
Statoil and its licence partners will now carry out pre-studies of the unmanned wellhead platform.
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