From the North Sea (NT): The roadmap has been ditched – that is, the roadmap showing the way forward for the Ormen Lange (SEN, 31/23) offshore compression project which Shell agreed to prepare last April in response to Petoro’s concerns about the work being halted (31/3).

There is no such roadmap in its plans, Shell now tells SEN.

Instead the partnership is ‘opening up the solution space in an effort to identify viable solutions to increase recovery,’ and a work-group is looking into alternative options and ways to reduce costs. ‘It is still too early to conclude if a project to increase recovery beyond onshore compression will be reopened as a future opportunity for Ormen Lange,’ Shell says.

More please, sir

Petoro is saying something else. It told SEN it expects the ‘operator and the other licence partners to…be committed to a further development of the Ormen Lange field, where a solution for compression is necessary in the late phase.’

The possible scrapping of offshore compression must come as a bit of a jolt for the Norwegian authorities, which have always shown willing to invest in offshore R&D. The authorities will not be happy to see the subsea option sink without a trace, an official from one of the partners told SEN.

And they usually have a way of getting their feelings across. There is also the NOK2.5bn invested by the licensees in the subsea compression pilot project. Is this money down the drain? It has yet to be formally explained how subsea compression compares with surface/onshore compression, the main aim of the pilot.

Ormen Lange, 120 km from shore, clearly presents a greater challenge than Åsgard, where Statoil is progressing well with its subsea compression project (30/22).

Here the subsea option was established as preferable to platform-based compression at an early stage for the 37km tieback. The compression trains are due to be installed this summer, a little behind schedule, and start-up is looming by late summer/autumn.

Offshore