Statoil’s Johan Castberg FPSO

Statoil has awarded Halvorsen TEC a project-specific agreement for a water treatment module for the Johan Castberg field.

The field represents a significant greenfield development project with a mid-$50 per barrel of oil breakeven that is situated approximately 100 kilometers north of the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea of northern Norway. Statoil has made the first call off of the agreement, which includes Front End Engineering and Design (FEED), and we expect the final call off to be exercised upon the receipt of the final investment decision (FID) in late 2017. Halvorsen TEC will carry out the delivery of this project in cooperation with GE Water & Process Technologies.

The ~1,000 tonne water treatment module to be delivered is a sulphate removal unit (SRU), which is critical to protect critical hydrocarbon production infrastructure, which would otherwise risk being damaged by significant levels of barium and strontium scale. The Halvorsen TEC and GE Water & Process Technologies (now Suez Water  Technologies & Solutions) consortium have demonstrated how this technology can help Statoil and other oil and gas producers reduce their costs in increasingly challenging offshore conditions and at competitive costs.  

The module consists of three major filtration systems: An ultraflitration unit is installed upstream the process in order to protect the nanofiltration membranes. The nanofiltration membranes will reject sulphate to avoid scaling. A membrane deaeration unit would be installed downstream the nanofiltration unit with fucntion to reduce the oxygen level down to below 20 ppb to avoid biofouling and corrosion.

Engineers from Halvorsen TEC are in charge of the design work (FEED) for this unit in cooperation with Aker Solutions and Statoil. The FEED workstream is expected to be completed in late 2017, when a final investment decision for the project is expected.

Johan Castberg has an estimated 400-650 million barrerels of oil and is expected to produce oil for over 30 years – a value of approximately NOK 290,000,000,000 (2015 value).