Snohvit offshore gas field goes online

The subsea systems of the Snohvit gas field on the northern Norway continental shelf, off Hammerfest, went onstream on May 28. Water expulsion from the 89-mile subsea pipeline that connects the Arctic offshore field to onshore processing facilities started on May 24. The wellstream from the field has reached the slug catcher, the first stage of the processing plant. Field operator Statoil expects the processing plant to come onstream during the summer.

“The entire subsea system has been project approved and just handed over to the operations organization,” said Gunnar Myrebøe, who heads the Snohvit subsea development. “We’re taking the wellstream ashore to the land plant now, while we have a vessel out at the field. This vessel will leave the field in the next few days.”

With subsea completions connected by subsea cable to an onshore control center, Snøhvit is the first field on the Norwegian continental shelf that can be remotely operated from land, Statoil said. Once production has started, nothing will be visible at the sea surface at the field location.

Statoil completed the field development within budget at a cost of just under NOK 8 billion (US$1.3 billion) without causing any harmful discharges into the sea, Statoil said.

The processing plant at Hammerfest will convert the Snohvit gas production into liquefied natural gas for shipping in LNG carriers.

—Alan Bailey