Wind farm connected to power North Sea gas rig
An offshore gas rig is being hailed by its owners as the first in the North Sea to be powered by offshore wind power.
The GEMS gas production project is owned by Dutch company ONE-Dyas in a joint venture with Hansda Hydrocarbons and Energie Beheer Nederland, which invests in exploring, producing and storing oil and gas for the Dutch government.
In the summer of 2024, production platform NO5-A was installed in the North Sea, with a pipeline connected to Noordgastransport NGT.
Just over a year later, in autumn this year, another cable was laid – this time to the nearby German Riffgat offshore wind farm, a tiny one by today’s standards, generating just over 110MW.
For several months, gas has been extracted from a single Dutch well, and a second is about to be drilled.
“The mobile drilling platform that will be temporarily connected to NO5-A to drill the well has been converted to run on electric power, which is unique in this part of the North Sea,” says GEMS. “This means that both gas production and drilling activities take place with minimal CO2 emissions: a breakthrough in offshore gas projects.”
The idea to power oil and gas production with electricity generated from offshore wind is not new: Maritime Journal has reported on several projects in which floating wind has been mooted.
In November 2023, two wind farms, Green Volt and Cenos, with a generating capacity of 2.9GW, were announced with a view to powering Scottish oil and gas operations; however both are still in the planning stages.
In March 2024, a Norwegian consortium revealed plans to power a Barents Sea oil platform with electricity also generated by floating wind.
Source Galileo Norge, Odfjell Oceanwind and Kansai Electric Power, in a consortium named GoliatVind, are aiming to install the floating wind around 85 kilometres northwest of Hammerfest in Norway, where the water is 300-400 metres deep.
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