ABB Cables to Power Johan Sverdrup

ABB has won an order worth around $90 million from Statoil, for a high-voltage cable system to supply power from shore to the Johan Sverdrup offshore oil field.

Located 155 kilometers west of Stavanger in the North Sea, Johan Sverdrup is considered one of the largest offshore oil fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS).

ABB will design, manufacture and install an 80-kilovolt (kV) extruded direct current (DC) cable system with a capacity of 100 megawatts to transmit power from the Norwegian power grid to the Johan Sverdrup offshore production facility.

At around 200 km in length, it will be the longest extruded submarine cable system to an offshore oil and gas platform facility in the world.

“Delivering enhanced customer value through close customer collaboration is an important element of ABB’s Next Level strategy and we are delighted to be supporting Statoil with this cable system as well as the HVDC converter stations,” said Claudio Facchin, president of ABB’s Power Systems division. ”With this ‘power from shore’ cable solution, ABB will once again be pushing the boundaries of technology and lowering environmental impact, in line with our vision of power and productivity for a better world.”

In March, ABB was awarded an order to supply the two High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) converter stations for the same project. One will be located onshore at Haugsneset, where it will turn alternating current (AC) from the grid into DC, which can be transmitted efficiently over 200 km to the second station which is on one of the oil platforms. There, the DC current will be converted back into AC and distributed to the rest of the field.

ABB also performed the front-end engineering and design for the entire Johan Sverdrup HVDC power-from-shore system.