Dependably meeting demand: A future-focused approach for Norwegian oil and gas operations
MURRAY WILSON, Sulzer Services
In the wake of ongoing sanctions against Russian seaborne crude oil and petroleum imports, Norway continues to play a heightened role in Europe’s energy security. While Russia previously supplied about 30% of the oil used in the EU, with the ban covering 90% of those imports, crude oil and petroleum imports to Europe have dropped dramatically. The result is a shift in trade patterns, with Norway increasing its production by about 8% to meet demand, becoming a top exporter of natural gas to Europe.
The Norwegian Continental Shelf remains a vital resource, bridging the gap between supply and demand. With Europe’s energy security increasingly tied to the Norwegian oil and gas sector, however, the need to explore and invest in production to ensure reliability across all operations is clear, Fig. 1.
Confirming the country’s commitment to energy security, Energy Minister Terje Asland reported in February that, “the government will continue to develop the Norwegian petroleum sector and build on its competence to develop solutions for the future.”
Indeed, 62 new production licenses were issued at the beginning of the year, compared with 47 licenses in 2023. Investment in the sector is expected to reach record highs this year.
According to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate, several Norwegian facilities, both onshore and offshore, experienced unplanned and extended maintenance shutdowns that impacted production last year. The Nyhamna gas processing plant, for example, was in the news last year, due to it being offline for a period of two months following an issue with its water-based cooling system.
With much of the forthcoming exploration expected to concentrate on existing infrastructure to take advantage of tie-backs, the reliability of that existing infrastructure is of key concern, along with the changes that will need to be made to accommodate increased production.
A new avenue for international leadership. Norway is well-placed to respond to the challenge of ramping up production to alleviate Europe’s energy security concerns. Backed by sovereign wealth funds, it has invested substantially in becoming an international leader in the industry, giving the country a technical edge across offshore technology, digitalization and automation.
It is also responding to climate change concerns by forging ahead with electrification and green hydrogen technologies. This has set a high standard for others to follow, with Norway often leading the way in matters of improved safety, reduced costs and environmental outcomes.
However, one area where Norway could unlock further efficiencies is in addressing the somewhat siloed approach that it takes to its operations and maintenance, Fig. 2. The country’s well-funded nature has meant that operators typically have separate teams or members of staff for specific equipment types—be it electro-mechanical, turbo or pumps.
While there are benefits to this set-up, with reliability in the spotlight, and revised production profiles looking likely in the coming years, there is an opportunity to approach operations and maintenance differently.
A collaborative, future-focused approach, which combines addressing the plant’s immediate operations and maintenance requirements with its future needs, could unlock plantwide synergies across reliability, energy efficiency, uptime, emissions, costs and more, Fig. 3. This could be particularly relevant for aging plants, where teams are already challenged to maintain uptime but will come under increasing pressure to step out production.
Making the most out of repairs. As an example, a platform in the North Sea was suffering from low compressor availability and had resorted to running its two compressor trains in parallel to meet gas export demand requirements, removing the redundancy the plant once had.
With availability as low as 58%, the poor performance of the compressor trains was severely affecting productivity and creating increased maintenance costs, Fig. 4. While urgent repair work was needed, the OEM’s lead time was long; the operator needed an alternative approach.
On inspection, Sulzer found that the units were showing signs of oil contamination and barrier seal leakage, as well as identifying wear to key components, Fig. 5. To minimize disruption, repair work was organized across two separate shutdowns. The first work order focused on addressing the leaks and contamination during scheduled downtime. This eased the maintenance burden and brought compressor availability up to 78.5%. With the immediate issues fixed, a second intervention was planned during scheduled downtime the following year to replace rotor and aero parts, which returned the compressor availability to 95.2%. As a result, the platform’s potential production rose from 850,000 to 1.7 MMboed, significantly future-proofing the platform’s capacity.
As the platform was now able to rely on just one of the two trains for its gas exports, it could keep the second train as redundancy, future-proofing its operations. This had the added benefit of reducing fuel gas by as much as 70,000 cmd, saving up to 40,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.
Making the most out of re-rates and retrofits. The potential to unlock major benefits in any maintenance work can also be applied to re-rates—a task which Norwegian/North Sea operators are likely to see more of soon, as tie-backs and upgrades increase to accommodate demand.
At Sulzer, re-rates, and indeed any other re-engineered solutions, are completed with design improvements in mind. There is great potential for significant upgrades across combustion and emissions, energy efficiency, longevity and reliability. Where pumping equipment is to be re-rated by 10% or more, it makes sense to package this with a new motor that adheres to the latest efficiency specifications to minimize production and plant impacts.
Where equipment is to be upgraded, it pays to inspect the adjacent driver, power transmission or driven equipment within the process skid to ensure that the full train will work harmoniously upon re-commissioning.
Taking advantage of this opportunity to further improve train reliability requires a one-stop-shop contractor that can provide repair, maintenance and installation services across pumps, turbines, generators and more. Backed by specialist industry knowledge, that contractor is well-placed to understand how each piece impacts the overall process and can react quickly to address the findings. Working collaboratively in this way can ensure Norway’s oil and gas operations are reliable, efficient and fit for the future.
MURRAY WILSON is regional director at Sulzer, where he is responsible for the Pumps, Turbo & Electro-Mechanical Service businesses in the Nordics region. He has spent nearly 20 years in senior roles at Sulzer and has over 30 years of engineering experience.
