Sevan’s cylindrical FPSO concept selected for Barents Sea project

Specialized marine engineering and design house Sevan SSP has revealed its concept has been chosen for the Equinor-operated Wisting field development in the Barents Sea.

Sevan announced on Tuesday that the concept chosen for the Wisting field was a Sevan designed cylindrical FPSO with power from shore to lower the CO2 emission from the field. 

Electrification of oil and gas assets is considered to be one of the main solutions for decarbonising existing and future oil and gas production with electricity provided either from an onshore power cable or offshore wind turbines.

Alf-Roger Skikstein, Sevan SSP Managing Director, commented: “Sevan is eager to pursue collaboration with all stakeholders to continue the work with greener initiatives and provide the best technical and cost-efficient solution for the Wisting field development project.”

The Wisting field – if a final investment decision is made – will presumably be one of the largest projects on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in the coming years and will be Sevan’s second cylindrical FPSO in the Barents Sea, after Goliat FPSO. 

The Wisting project is located in the Hoop area of the Barents Sea, around 310 kilometres from the Norwegian mainland. Volumes are estimated at 440 million barrels of oil equivalent. Equinor has been the operator of the Wisting field development phase since 1 December 2019 after taking over the operatorship from OMV.

Following the takeover and moving on with the Wisting project development, Equinor in November 2020 awarded contracts for concept studies to Aker Solutions, KBR, Sevan SSP, and Aibel for the FPSO part and Aker Solutions, TechnipFMC, OneSubsea Processing, IKM Ocean Design, and Kongsberg Maritime for the SURF part to further progress the project development towards a final concept select decision.

In October 2021, Aker Solutions was awarded a letter of intent for a front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract from Equinor for the Wisting field FPSO followed by a formal contract award less than a month later.

Come December and, at Lundin’s request – after the company completed the previously announced transaction to acquire a further 25 per cent working interest from OMV – Equinor agreed to continue the operatorship of the Wisting project not only in the development but also in the operations phase of the project.

Therefore, following an investment decision for the project, which is expected at the end of 2022, Equinor will continue its Wisting operatorship into the operations phase. 

Equinor (operator) has a 35 per cent interest in Wisting and its partners are Lundin (35 per cent), Petoro (20 per cent), and Idemitsu Petroleum Norge (10 per cent).