UK green energy infrastructure developer Cerulean Winds, and Ping Petroleum UK have signed an agreement to create one of the UK’s first oil and gas facilities powered mainly by offshore wind.
Under the agreement the production facility at Ping Petroleum’s Avalon site, located in the UK Central North Sea, will be mainly powered by floating offshore wind. The pioneering project will help meet the emissions reduction targets agreed between government and industry in the North Sea Transition Deal in March 2021.
The provision of wind power will remove up to 20 000 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions every year from the offshore production facility. The project will also act as a demonstration – later this summer, applications will open to developers for seabed leases to drive the decarbonisation of other oil and gas assets across the North Sea.
Ping Petroleum UK acquired a 100% stake in the Avalon site in August 2021, with production expected to begin in 2025. The field has a total estimated recovery of 23 million barrels of oil. The proposed development concept for the plans have already been cleared by the North Sea Transition Authority (NTSA), and a field development plan is to be submitted later this year.
Under these plans, Cerulean Winds with its consortium of industrial partners will provide a large floating offshore wind turbine to be connected to Ping Petroleum’s Floating Production & Storage vessel. It will be one of the largest floating wind turbines built in the UK and will provide the major part of the power required by the production & storage vessel.
As part of the agreement with Ping, Cerulean Winds have committed to fully manufacturing and assembling the offshore wind turbine in the UK. The project was enabled by a grant to Cerulean Winds through the Floating Offshore Wind Demonstration Programme from the UK government’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to support the innovation and optimisation of the technology that will be deployed.
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