Statoil gets go-ahead to use Gina Krog ahead of start-up

Norway’s offshore safety agency, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has given Statoil the consent to put the North Sea’s Gina Krog platform and associated pipeline system into service.

In June 2016, Statoil, as the operator, received a partial consent from the PSA to put into service the accommodation quarters, cranes, pipelines, and other parts of the Gina Krog platform that were necessary for activities in the phase leading up to production start-up, which is expected this April.

The agency said on Monday that the new consent applies to putting into service the production plant of the Gina Krog platform, the gas export pipeline between Gina Krog and Sleipner A, the oil export pipeline between the Gina Krog platform and the Gina Krog FSO storage unit, and the gas import pipeline from Zeepipe IIA to Gina Krog.

The safety body added that the consent also included power installations for the future reception of power from onshore.

An application from Statoil to deploy the Gina Krog FSO is currently being processed by the PSA.

The Gina Krog field is located 30 kilometers northwest of the Sleipner field in the North Sea and around 250 kilometers southwest of Stavanger, Norway. The development has an estimated 225 million barrels of oil and gas.

The produced liquids will be transported via a tanker, and the gas via the Sleipner field. The lower part of the platform, the jacket, was built by Dutch company Heerema, while the topsides were built by Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine and Engineering (DSME) in South Korea.