By Buddy Ives

The 2008 OTC Distinguished Achie-vement Award went to StatoilHydro for the Ormen Lange project, an innovative subsea-to-shore project that overcame significant technical challenges to become Norway’s deepest offshore development.

At the annual awards luncheon, Morten Ruud, executive vice president, Projects business unit, StatoilHydro, accepted the award from OTC Board Chairman Don Vardeman.

Ruud noted that development of the Ormen Lange field is considered one of the largest and most demanding industrial projects ever carried out in Norway.

Ormen Lange is located in the Norwegian Sea, approximately 140 km west of Kristiansund, Norway. The discovery lies across four blocks where preliminary estimates have determined the field is the second-largest gas discovery on the Norwegian Shelf after Troll.

The award-winning project, which started production in late 2007, allows Norway to expand its production capacity substantially and is capable of supplying more than 20% of the UK’s natural gas requirements for up to 40 years. The main gas reserves lie in a reservoir in the Vale formation. Drilling has confirmed the original estimated resources at 315 billion m³ of natural gas. With a gradual production increase over the next two to three years, the field is projected to have the capability to produce 70 MMsm³ of natural gas per day.

The difficulties experienced developing the field involved the water depth and subsea topography, along with the harsh climate conditions. The field lies in water depths from 800 m to 1,200 m, adjacent to the steep back wall left by the Storegga submarine slide, which occurred 7,000-8,000 years ago. This certainly added to the daunting magnitude and advanced technology required for the project.

Development consisted of three sub-projects: the production facility located on the seabed without a platform, construction of an onshore processing plant at Nyhamna on the west coast of Norway, and construction of the 1,200-km Langeled pipeline from the processing plant in Norway to Easington and the UK gas market. The gas is transported 120 km from the field to the terminal, where the gas is processed to sales specifications and moved to the pipeline for export.

Key features of the project include:

• Offshore system, with up to four templates, two umbilicals, two monoethylene glycol (MEG) inhibitors and two 76.2cm pipelines to shore
• Onshore plant at Nyhamna for well stream processing, gas export compression and condensate offloading to tankers
• Future compression facility, planned to be installed at the field to maintain production with the declining reservoir pressure, currently projected for 2016
• Development program for subsea compression as an alternative to a future platform
• Langeled transportation system extending from Nyhamna to Easington, with a total pipeline.