TotalEnergies upholds March restart date for Denmark’s largest natural gas field

Exploration & Production

February 28, 2024, by Melisa Čavčić

TotalEnergies EP Danmark, a subsidiary of France’s energy giant TotalEnergies, has confirmed the previously set restart date for the Tyra II redevelopment project, which is said to be Denmark’s largest natural gas field.

According to TotalEnergies’ latest remit notification, issued on behalf of its partners in the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC), the redevelopment of the Tyra project in the Danish sector of the North Sea is progressing according to plan. At the same time, some operational uncertainties, which are present, are expected to remain in the weeks to come.

Furthermore, the testing program and continuous efforts in achieving the technical milestones associated with the preparation of the restart continue to indicate that the ramp-up from 0 mcm/d available capacity to 8,1 mcm/d technical capacity is expected to take four months from the resumption of production of the redeveloped Tyra.

This covers the time required to repressurize and activate the connecting gas infrastructure. While TotalEnergies explains that capacity variations may still occur and impact the ramp-up period, the project’s current progress indicates that the restart date of March 31, 2024, for the arrival of the first gas from Tyra to the Danish market remains valid.

However, the energy giant underlines that the restart of production from the field could, depending on project progress, be reached earlier in the second half of March. Tyra has been a center for processing and exporting more than 90% of the natural gas produced in the Danish North Sea before its redevelopment.

The redevelopment, which was required due to the field’s natural subsidence of the chalk reservoir after many years of production, entailed three elements, including decommissioning and recycling of the old Tyra platforms, recycling and extending the current platform legs on six of the platforms, which got new topsides, a completely new process module, and a new accommodation platform.

A crane was put on the process module (TEG) into permanent use after the installation of the Tyra II process module in early October 2022, which broke the world record as the heaviest crane lift ever undertaken at sea. The TEG enabled the completion of the remaining scope of the project’s hook-up, commissioning, and start-up activities.

This module will process 300 million standard cubic feet of gas per day at peak from Tyra and five unmanned satellite fields, including Tyra Southeast, Harald, Valdemar, Svend, and Roar. Once on stream, Tyra II is expected to deliver 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas per year, which amounts to 80% of the forecasted Danish gas production.

Recently, a final investment decision (FID) was taken to drill a well in the Harald East area. If the drilling activities are successful, gas will be exported through the Tyra East facilities. The well could deliver production by the end of 2024.