Fully assembled and tested, the topside for the Johan Sverdrup processing platform is leaving the Samsung Heavy Industries yard on time, below budget and with no serious incidents.

“The Johan Sverdrup project has been on a formidable improvement journey the last few years, mostly thanks to high quality in the execution phase. This has also been a defining characteristic of the delivery of the processing topside currently en route from South Korea to Norway,” says Trond Bokn, senior vice president for the Johan Sverdrup development.

“In cooperation with Aker Solutions, Samsung has delivered another high-quality topside for Johan Sverdrup according to plan and without serious incidents. Such deliveries are imperative to ensure a safe start-up of Johan Sverdrup in November 2019,” says Bokn.

Aker Solutions has been responsible for engineering and procurement management for the two topsides, while Samsung Heavy Industries has been responsible for construction of the riser platform and now the processing platform for the Johan Sverdrup field.

Photo credit: Equinor

The riser topside was constructed in record time and below budget and sailed from the yard on Geoje island in February this year. The processing platform has been constructed as a complete topside, and after the actual construction phase was finalized in May this year, the platform has been subject to countless tests to complete the processing facility to the fullest extent possible before installation offshore at the Johan Sverdrup field next spring.

“Having built this as a complete topside gave us a unique opportunity to test a lot of systems that we normally wouldn’t have been able to test prior to installation offshore. This has given us a better picture of the quality of the work undertaken and helps safeguard the plan towards start-up of the field next year,” says Jill Sale, project manager for the processing platform and responsible for the Johan Sverdrup project in South Korea.

“What I am most proud of, in addition to the quality of the processing facility, is that the work done here on both the riser platform and now the processing platform have been completed without any serious incidents,” says Sale.

Close to 17 million working hours have been spent on constructing the riser topside and the processing topside at the Samsung yard.

The processing platform is now sailing to Norway on board Boskalis Vanguard, the world’s largest heavy-transport vessel.

Photo credit: Equinor

The topside is heading for the Kværner yard on Stord where two pedestal cranes will be mounted, and further preparations will be made, before it is to be lifted into position at the Johan Sverdrup field in one single lift by the Pioneering Spirit vessel in the spring of 2019.

“2018 has been a very busy and important year for Johan Sverdrup, involving a lot of offshore installation work – probably more installation activity in one season than for any other project on the Norwegian continental shelf before,” says Bokn.

“Both the beginning and end of 2018 have seen good deliveries from Samsung, first the riser platform that sailed away in February this year, and now we have another sail-away at the year-end. The processing platform will in many ways set the tone for 2019, as it will be the first of the last two topsides to be installed next spring.

Facts

The processing platform (P1) is one of four platforms that make up the Johan Sverdrup field centre in the first phase of the project. The others are the riser platform (RP) and the drilling platform (DP), installed in 2018, and the Utility and Living Quarter (ULQ) which together with the processing platform will be installed during spring 2019.

Aker Solutions has been responsible for the engineering and procurement for the Riser platform and Process platform topsides, while Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has been responsible for fabrication of the two topsides.

The processing platform (P1) will handle the processing and refining of all oil and gas from the first phase of Johan Sverdrup. The processing platform has capacity for 440,000 barrels of oil per day. In the second phase of Johan Sverdrup the field centre will be extended with another processing platform (P2) with capacity for an additional 220,000 barrels of oil per day.

The processing topside weighs approximately 28,100 tons and measures 139 meters long, 69 meters wide, and 72 meters tall.

The processing topside is the third topside to be installed at the field, and the second to be lifted in place with the specialized heavy lift vessel Pioneering Spirit.

The lift technology employed by the Pioneering Spirit was qualified and used for the first time ever for the Johan Sverdrup drilling platform installed in June, and enables topsides to be fully constructed and tested onshore prior to installation. This significantly reduces the amount of installation hours needed offshore, which has major benefits both from a safety and cost perspective.

General facts about Johan Sverdrup:

Phase 1

Includes the development of four platforms, three subsea installations for water injection, power from shore, export pipeline for oil (Mongstad) and gas (Kårstø)

CAPEX estimate: NOK 86 billion (nominal terms based on fixed currency)

Production start expected in November 2019

Phase 2

Includes development of another processing platform (P2), modifications of the riser platform and the field centre, five subsea templates, in addition to power from shore to the Utsira High in 2022

Investment estimate: NOK 41 (nominal terms based on fixed currency) Production start expected in Q4 2022

Full field

Resource estimate: 2,2 – 3,2 billion barrels of oil equivalent

Break-even price: below USD 20 per barrel

Estimated combined income from production from Johan Sverdrup amounts to 1430 billion NOK (2018) over the life of the field. Expected cash flow amounts to approximately 1130 billion NOK (2018). Income to the Norwegian state is expected to amount to more than 900 billion NOK, from taxes (more than 700 billion NOK) and from the Norwegian state’s ownership of Petoro. PARTNERS: Equinor: 40.0267 % (operator), Lundin Norway: 22.6 %, Petoro: 17.36 %, Aker BP: 11.5733 % and Total: 8.44 %.