Norwegian oil company Statoil has received consent from the country’s offshore regulator, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), to extend the lifetime of the Gullfaks B platform and its associated pipelines, offshore Norway, by almost two decades.
The consent from the safety authority follows the one by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), a government agency whose task is to manage the oil and gas resources on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, given in August last year. The NPD’s go-ahead for using the Gullfaks B platform corresponded to the length of the production license.
Statoil is the operator of the Gullfaks field, located in block 34/10 at Tampen in the northern part of the North Sea. Gullfaks has been developed using three integrated processing, drilling and accommodation facilities with concrete jackets and steel decks, Gullfaks A, B and C.
Gullfaks B was installed on the field in July 1987 and began production in February 1988. The existing consent for use of Gullfaks B expires in July 2017.
In order to extract the remaining reserves in Gullfaks, Statoil has applied for consent to extend the lifetime of Gullfaks B and its associated pipelines to June 30, 2036.
According to the safety agency, the application applies to: Gullfaks B; 12’’ oil/gas pipeline from Gullfaks B to Gullfaks C; 8’’ gas pipeline from Gullfaks B to Gullfaks A; 16’’ flexible oil pipeline from Gullfaks B to Gullfaks A; 20’’ water injection pipeline from Gullfaks A to Gullfaks B (not operational, preserved).
The regulator has now given Statoil consent to extend the lifetime of the Gullfaks B platform and its associated pipelines to June 30, 2036.
Consent has been granted based on Statoil’s documentation of assessments which conclude that the platform can continue to be operated safely and responsibly and in compliance with regulatory requirements, the regulator concluded.