Statoil gets nod to modify Gina Krog for temporary oil transport solution

The Norwegian offshore safety agency, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has given Statoil the consent to modify North Sea’s Gina Krog platform for deploying a temporary oil transport solution.

This consent comes after the PSA gave the Norwegian oil major a consent to put the Gina Krog platform and associated pipeline system into service.

The consent applied 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 PSA said on Friday that Statoil also applied for the modification consent to facilitate temporary oil transport until the Gina Krog floating, storage, and offloading (FSO) storage vessel is ready for use.

According to the agency’s statement, the Gina Krog FSO is expected to be ready in the third quarter of 2017.

Until the FSO is ready and in place, the temporary oil transfer solution for Gina Krog involves oil being loaded directly into shuttle tankers.

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.