Environmental applause for planned land power

Sleipner East Acergy Piper pipleline land powerAcergy Piper lays pipeline at Sleipner East. Photo: Kim Laland/Statoil

Environmental applause for planned land power to oil rigs

The energy company Equinor (Statoil) wants to operate three oil rigs currently operated by gas turbines with land power instead. The change can reduce CO emissions a lot.

 

According to Equinor, formerly known as Statoil, a switch to land power could cut CO₂ emissions from the Troll C and Sleipner area by over 600,000 metric ton annually.

The company is now working with its partners to look at the possibility of electrifying the Troll C and Sleipner Field Center together with the associated Gudrun platform in the North Sea.

Challenges Equinor

The news is welcomed both by the environmental movement and MDG (The Norwegian Green Party).

– Its good news that Equinor wish to use clean power on those platforms. The platforms are currently powered by gas turbines and are responsible for large emissions of CO₂.locally Now we can get rid of these, says leader in the environmental foundation ZERO, Marius Holm.

He wonders which electrification solution Equinor chooses, and emphasizes that if the decision is to use offshore wind parks, two birds can be killed by one stone providing clean power to the platforms and at the same time creating an important home market for the Norwegian offshore wind industry.

– I will challenge Equinor to evaluate electrification of all existing and future platforms, he says.

Good start

MP for the Environmental Party The Greens (MDG), Per Espen Stoknes, calls this positive notes, but at the same time states that the electrification plan is not sufficient if the objectives of the Paris accord are to be met.

– Equinor has finally realized that it is smart with green growth. If they continue with these measures, while building large-scale offshore wind parks, they can make it happen by 2030, says Stoknes.

– We must not forget that that most of the emissions still escape into the atmosphere, just not during the production of oil as such. We continue to export huge amounts of oil abroad, which has made Norway the world’s seventh largest exporter of greenhouse gas emissions. Doing an about turn requires more than this, although it’s a good start, says the MDG representative.

650,000 passenger cars

600,000 metric ton of CO₂ are equivalent to emissions from about 300,000 passenger cars. Taking into account the emission potential the company has contributed to by choosing land power for the fields Johan Sverdrup, Gina Krog and Martin Linge, the total is over 1.3 million metric ton CO₂ a year.

– That is equivalent to emissions from more than 650,000 passenger cars annually. Or about every fourth passenger car on the Norwegian roads, says Arne Sigve Nylund to NRK.

 

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today