Shell to remove emergency response vessel from Knarr

Shell has received consent from Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) to remove the emergency response vessel from the Knarr field, off Norway. 

Shell is the operator of the Knarr field, which is in the northern sector of the North Sea, around 50 kilometers north-east of Snorre. Knarr has been developed using a production and storage vessel (FPSO), the Petrojarl Knarr, and subsea wells.

Oil is loaded from the Knarr FPSO into tankers, while the gas is exported by pipeline to St. Fergus in the UK. Production from the field began in 2015. The FPSO has a production capacity of 63,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and a storage capacity of 800,000 barrels.

According to the safety authority’s statement on Friday, Shell now wishes to remove the emergency response vessel from Knarr, and has performed an impact assessment for this purpose.

The agency said this shows that the vessel can be removed while continuing to meet the emergency preparedness performance requirements. The precondition is that Shell improves the MOB (man over board) system on Knarr FPSO and installs backup equipment for traffic monitoring on the unit.

The PSA has now granted Shell consent for the removal.

Shell is the operator of the field with 45 stake and its partners are Idemitsu Petroleum Norway with 25%, Wintershall Norway with 20%, adn DEA Norway with the remaining 10% interest.