Equinor starts up Verdande subsea tieback offshore mid-Norway

Equinor has brought onstream its sixth subsea tieback to the Norne FPSO in the Norwegian Sea.

Verdande, comprising the Cape Vulture and North East discoveries, is primarily an oil field with some associated gas, located 7 km north of the Norne Field and about 200 km from Sandnessjøen on the Norwegian mainland.

It has been developed via three wells and a subsea template, and a pipeline connected to the FPSO. With estimated oil reserves of 36 MMbbl, it should help extend production through the FPSO beyond 2030.

In late September, Equinor started up the single-well Andvare tieback, drilled from an existing template, ORLEN reported. Andvare is operated by Equinor Energy (53% of shares in the field), with DNO Norge (32%) and ORLEN Upstream Norway (15%) holding the remaining interests.

All oil from Norne is shipped by shuttle tankers, with the gas heading via the Åsgard Transport trunkline system to Kårstø.

Total investments in Verdande were just above NOK6 billion (US$990 million); the other partners in the development are Petoro, DNO Norge, Japex Norge, Aker BP and Orlen Upstream Norway. (Subject to approval from the Norwegian government, DNO will also acquire Aker BP’s and Orlen’s equity interests).

TechnipFMC, headquartered in Kongsberg, supplied the subsea production equipment, with the subsea control module also built locally. Agility fabricated the subsea template and manifold in Tønsberg, with Westcon Helgeland in Nesna supplying the suction anchors.

Aibel’s Harstad team managed the modifications to enable the FPSO to receive oil from Verdande, supported by subcontractor Momek in Mo i Rana.

Subsea7’s spoolbase in Vigra, Norway, assembled and spooled the pipelines onto the installation vessel, with subsea installation work co-managed by Deep Ocean in Haugesund.

The semisub Transocean Encourage drilled the wells, designed at Equinor’s office in Stjørdal, with Halliburton providing wells services from its Stavanger office. Completion Tracer, also in Harstad, supplied tracers for the wells to support production optimisation.

Finally, OneSubsea’s Moss base supplied the subsea control cable. Equinor is managing Verdande operations from its remote control center in Harstad.