Piecing together the jigsaw
Published: 27 January, 2014
Offshore Design & Engineering Europe turns the spotlight on the Brynhild field in the Norwegian North Sea, focusing on what some of the key technology and service providers have brought to the project, which is currently gearing up for its first stage of oil production.
In June this year, Lundin Petroleum AB, through its wholly owned subsidiary Lundin Norway AS, announced the commencement of the drilling of the first development well on the Brynhild field in PL148, located in the Norwegian North Sea.
The Brynhild field is located adjacent to the Norway-UK border, some 210km from the Norwegian mainland. The development of Brynhild has involved the drilling of four development wells with a subsea tie-back to the Haewene Brim FPSO located at the Shell Pierce development in the UK sector of the North Sea, 38 km south of the field. Operations, while largely complete, are expected to continue until Q2 2014.
Estimated reserves
The estimated gross reserves are approximately 23 million barrels of oil equivalents (MMboe) with gross peak production of approximately 12,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day (boepd). The hydrocarbons will be processed at the Haewene Brim FPSO before being offloaded for further transportation.
Flowlines
In November 2011 Lundin Petroleum awarded Technip a lump sum contract, worth approximately €100 million, for the Brynhild field development. The development comprises three wells tied back to the Shell Pierce platform in UK waters. This 37 kilometer long tie-back is based on the use of Technip’s proven technology for the reeled pipe-in-pipe production and plastic lined water injection flowlines (a pipe, laid on the seabed, which allows the transportation of oil/gas production or injection of fluids. Its length can vary from a few hundred meters to several km). The contract also included spools, tie-ins, trenching and protection of the flowlines, together with installation of subsea structures and the control umbilical (an assembly of steel tubes and/or thermoplastic hoses that can also include electrical cables or optic fibres used to control subsea structures from a platform or a vessel). Technip’s operating centre in Oslo, Norway has been busy executing this contract. Pipeline welding has been undertaken at the Group’s spoolbase in Evanton, Scotland while installation has been performed with the Apache II, a vessel from Technip fleet.
Jack-up rig
In the same month as the Technip agreement, Maersk Drilling signed a contract with Lundin Norway AS for an ultra-harsh environment jack-up rig to carry out subsea field development of the Brynhild Field. The contract was for Maersk Guardian and Maersk Giant. These are sister rigs of Hitachi Zosen design and are built for operation in particularly harsh environments such as the Norwegian North Sea. The contract value for the firm three-well period was approximately US$97 million. This work commenced earlier this year.
Production system
Also in November 2011, Aker Solutions signed a contract with Lundin for the engineering, procurement and construction of a subsea production system for the Brynhild project. The contract value was approximately NOK 700 million.
The scope of work included one template-manifold structure, one riser base, three subsea trees, three wellhead systems, control system, a tie-in system, 38km of umbilicals, HP riser and rental tooling. The contract contained several options for additional equipment, including other field developments.
Management, engineering and procurement of the subsea production system have been primarily performed at Aker Solutions' headquarters in Oslo, Norway. Fabrication of the subsea trees have been completed at Aker Solutions' manufacturing centre in Tranby, Norway and production of the template-manifolds have been carried out at the company's fabrication yard in Egersund, Norway. The umbilical was manufactured in Moss, Norway and the control and wellhead systems were delivered out of Aberdeen, UK. Installation and commissioning has been handled by Aker Solution's service base in Aagotnes, Norway. Final deliveries were made in Q2 of this year.
Subsea instrumentation
In May 2012 Emerson Process Management won a multi-million dollar contact to deliver its Roxar subsea instrumentation to the Brynhild field. The contract was awarded by Aker Solutions, provider of oilfield products, systems and services, and covers Roxar subsea multiphase meters, subsea Sencorr pressure and temperature sensors, subsea chemical injection valves, and sand monitors. Aker Solutions has used the instrumentation as part of the rolling out of a complete subsea production system on Brynhild, with Emerson also delivering a number of downhole pressure and temperature gauges directly to Lundin Petroleum.
The tieback from Brynhild to the Pierce field’s FPSO (Floating, Production Storage & Offloading) platform in the UK sector is a cross-border subsea tie-back where key data for fiscal allocation and production measurement is gathered subsea. Combining the Brynhild and Pierce’s tie-back flow will avoid the need for a dedicated riser for Brynhild. The Roxar subsea instrumentation will be crucial to generating accurate measurement and input to fiscal allocation from the different flow streams.
Emerson’s solution for the Brynhild field provides Lundin with high flow measurement accuracy, control and insight into its subsea operations:
• The Roxar subsea Multiphase meter provides accurate and continuous on-line monitoring of the flow rates of oil, water and gas in subsea well streams.
• The Roxar subsea SenCorr pressure and temperature (PT) sensors are built for long-life operations in harsh subsea production environments. A silicon piezoresistive sensor measures both pressure and temperature from the same measurement bridge, giving complete temperature compensation of the pressure reading.
• The Roxar subsea Chemical Injection valve (High Flow) is a reliable, compact and robust retrievable solution providing total control over the injection of inhibitors.
• The Roxar Sand monitor is a nonintrusive acoustic sand monitoring system that enables operators to optimise production by enabling the determination of maximum sand-free rates or maximum acceptable sand production rates.
Acquisition agreement
In December last year, Lundin Petroleum AB, through its wholly owned subsidiary Lundin Norway AS (Lundin Norway), completed the agreement with Talisman Energy Norge (Talisman Norge) to acquire a 20% interest in the Brynhild field, offshore Norway. Following the acquisition, Lundin Petroleum holds a 90% interest in the Brynhild field. The original agreement, as announced in March 2012, did not close. Subsequently the agreement was amended such that Lundin Norway has acquired a 20% interest from Talisman Norge with Talisman Norge retaining 10% in the field. The amended agreement was fully approved by the Norwegian authorities.
First oil production
The Brynhild field is forecast to produce first oil in the fourth quarter of 2013 at a gross plateau production of 12,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Brynhild field project overview
Location Block 7, Norwegian North sea
Operator: Lundin Norway.
Number of Wells: Four.
Oil Reserves: 23 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe).
Peak production per day: 12,000 barrels.
Total investment in the field: Estimated to be US$5 billion.
Anticipated start of production: End of 2013.
