A/S Norske Shell and partners have taken a final investment decision on a wet gas subsea compression project at the Ormen Lange gas and condensate field in the Norwegian Sea and submitted a plan for development and operation (PDO) to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
Two stations with compressors that handle rich gas will be installed on the seabed near the wellheads at 900 m sea depth. The project is designed to produce another 30-50 billion cu m natural gas, increasing field recovery rate of 75-85%. The distance between land and seabed compressors will be a new length record for power cable for compressors under water.
Ormen Lange, in the Norwegian Sea, is electrified with power from the Norwegian power grid, and the gas is processed in a closed system at Nyhamna gas plant. The field exports its gas through Langeled, a 1,200 km long pipeline from Nyhamna to Easington, UK. Langeled is also linked to the Norwegian gas export system to Europe.
In 2019, OneSubsea was awarded the frame agreement for an Ormen Lange subsea multiphase compression system (OGJ Online, Nov. 1, 2019).
OneSubsea has contracted Subsea 7 to engineer, procure, construct, and install the subsea flowline system as well as install the multiphase compression system. This will be executed as a Subsea Integration Alliance project.
Shell is operator at Ormen Lange (17.8%) with partners Petoro AS (36.4%), Equinor Energy AS (25.3%), INEOS E&P Norge AS (14%), and Vår Energi AS 6.3%.