Gjøa – From Feasibility to Production
The field is located at a water depth of 360 meters in the North Sea, about 60 kilometers west of Florø, Norway. The reservoir was discovered in 1989 and holds an estimated 82 million barrels of oil and condensate and 40 billion cubic meters of gas. Equinor was the operator during its development and ENGIE (GDF Suez) assumed the operatorship as production started in November 2010.
Gjøa was the first floating oil and gas production platform to be supplied with electric power from shore, a solution enabling the reduction of CO2 and NOX emissions. CO2 emissions will be cut by about a quarter of a million metric tons a year - equivalent to annual emissions from 100,000 cars. Power from shore also reduces operation and maintenance cost, noise, and energy consumption.
The development represented the opening of a new area for North Sea oil and gas production. Gjøa’s production and export capacity enables further exploration and tie-in of surrounding discoveries such as the nearby Vega field, providing an extra 26 million barrels of condensate and 18 billion cubic meters of gas.
The field development solution includes a semisubmersible production unit with full processing and export facilities, four subsea templates, and the Vega subsea satellite development. The platform has a daily production and export capacity of 87,000 barrels of oil and 17 million cubic meters of gas. Oil is transported to the Mongstad refinery through a 53 kilometer pipeline connected to the TOR2 pipeline system. The rich gas is exported to the St. Fergus gas terminal in Scotland through a 130 kilometer pipeline linked to the British FLAGS pipeline system.
Aker Solutions’ Role in the Project
The delivery of the Gjøa platform demonstrates Aker Solutions' innovative technology, proven floater solutions and competence in managing and executing large and complex offshore projects.
Aker Solutions conducted multiple feasibility and concept studies in 2004-2005, providing input to the partnership’s development decision based on a number of production and export scenarios.
From 2006 to 2010, Aker Solutions worked on the front-end engineering design, detail engineering and procurement for the 23,000 metric ton topside as well as detail engineering for the 14,000 metric ton hull based on our standardized semi-submersible design.
Detail engineering, follow-on engineering and procurement services were provided as part of the overall Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Hookup (EPCH) contract. In the detail engineering phase, we used our global delivery model with engineers from our Oslo and Mumbai hubs working together to ensure sufficient capacity and world-class competence. Aker Solutions also supplied the platform’s steel tube umbilicals from our Moss facility, and delivered the riser module from the Egersund yard.