Eni’s Goliat field shut down after power outage

Another day, another problem for Goliat. Eni Norge, the operator of the giant Goliat FPSO in the Barents Sea, off Norway, has informed that the production from the namesake oil field was stopped on Friday night.

“The Goliat FPSO lost all power from shore 26.08.2016 at 22:30, and the production was stopped,” Eni said in a statement on Saturday morning.

The field is supplied with hydro-generated electricity from the mainland by means of a subsea cable. Following the power outage, the company started sending non-essential personnel to Hammerfest by helicopter. The Goliat is located 85 kilometers northwest of Hammerfest.

The evacuation was stopped after the power returned a few hours later, and “the situation normalized.”

Eni did not elaborate if this means that the production is now back online.

The Goliat development, dubbed the world’s northernmost producing field, has been plagued with problems even before the output began.

It was originally planned for first oil in 2013, however, following years of delays and technical problems, oil production only started a couple of months ago, in March 2016, with the official inauguration taking place on Monday, April 22.

The inauguration didn’t go smooth either because the night before the inauguration, a gas leak was detected aboard the FPSO. Also, on Monday afternoon of April 18, a few hours after inauguration, there was another gas alarm in the afternoon. This would later be described as a false alarm, since the production was shut down.”

Last but not least, an offshore worker was injured aboard the FPSO late in June during an unloading operation.

Developed using a Sevan-designed cylindrical FPSO built in South Korea, the field is estimated to contain about 180 million barrels of oil. The cost of the development had originally been set at $5.06 billion, but the figure has surpassed the $6 billion mark.

Eni holds a 65% stake (as operator) in Production Licence 229. The Norwegian company Statoil holds the remaining 35%.

Offshore Energy Today Staff