Page 22: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Nov/Dec 2019)

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FEATURE Marginal Fields

From Marginal to Major

BY WILLIAM STOICHEVSKI t’s not your typical marginal ? eld bought Gjoea near the Sleipner plat- — centered on a concrete gravity- form and what was left of the Drau- based structure (GBS) that once gen area (complete with production boasted production records — but infrastructure for major production).

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Draugen in the Norwegian Sea had Draugen’s age showed. Some 190 become “immaterial” to Shell. When meters of corroded carbon in? eld it ? rst delivered oil in 1993, Norwe- pipelines with pinhole size leakages gians looked forward to the spoils in had to be replaced with “stainless” 1.4 billion barrels (bbl) oil in-place. steel lengths (done in a record seven

Today, that number’s down to less days). Two subsea trees needed to be than 17 million bbl, minus satel- changed out, and applying predictive lites. When Shell sold the ? eld to new maintenance on sprawling oil? eld in-

Trondheim-based indie, OKEA, in frastructure, the company discovered, 2018, serial entrepreneur and CEO, meant an array of plant needed more

Eric Hagene, decided to turn in? eld monitoring and contractor integra- reserves and a minor nearby discovery tion. Safety of? cials added that vibra- into production hub Draugen. So far, tions topside, especially in high-seas, “25 years”, that frees OKEA to pro- the plan is working. would need constant vigilance. duce whatever’s within reach from the

Unlike, Hagene — a geologist by In fact, OKEA’S Draugen, unlike platform. With the price of carbon- training and founder of oil compa- Shell’s, is a massive ? ip job, a major emissions credits skyrocketing, he nies Det Norske and Aker BP — in- renovation and grab of whatever area might even earn money on emissions vestors weren’t all that thrilled by the reserves will make the GBS as hub. credits should the platform be electri- marginal discovery, Hasselmus, or “We think it’ll be 25 more years with ? ed from shore, though that’s not a those in? eld reserves. They failed to OKEA,” a jovial Hagene says. For given. A list of ? elds slated for a next make a planned $100 million list- him, getting down to work means not round of “electri? cation” from shore ing spectacular, although they helped wearing his characteristic bow tie. appeared in Norwegian newspapers raise $35 million. “It was a billion-barrel ? eld. We’ll recently, and Draugen wasn’t on it.

For less than the price of an Equi- take the last 100,000 barrels,” he No loss. Start-up OKEA is still nor fast-track ? eld development says con? dently. Why not go for it. making 22,000 bbl per day (bpd) at of ? ve years ago, OKEA — owned Shell, after all, is understood to have the depleted Draugen and has earned by Hagene’s holding company and the decommissioning costs on at least 500 million NOK ($54.6 million) by Thai energy out? t Bangchak — the GBS. So, for the next eight to in the ? rst half of 2019. To take the 22 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM