Tie-in of Snorre A

Norwegian Petroleum Museum

The A platform on the Snorre field north of Statfjord was built and installed with a view to being tied back to Statfjord A for final processing and export.

— Snorre tie-in. Illustration: Equinor

As operator for Snorre, Norwegian oil company Saga Petroleum entered into an agreement with the Statfjord licensees on using their processing capacity. Oil production from Statfjord A was gradually declining after the platform had been on stream for a number of years, making spare capacity available. Nearby installations could accordingly be tied back to it in order to use its processing facilities.

Snorre A was outfitted to separate oil and gas, which was then piped to Statfjord A for final processing. By early 1992, it became clear that the new platform could come on stream several months ahead of schedule. In order to accept Snorre production, modifications had to be made on Statfjord A. The final adjustments were made during the planned maintenance turnaround in May 1992. In a short space of time, gas treatment capacity on the platform was expanded by roughly a million cubic metres in order to accommodate Snorre output.

By the autumn of 1992, Snorre was accounting for a third of the crude oil flowing through the facilities on Statfjord A. A 20-inch oil flowline and a 10-inch pipeline for gas were laid between the two platforms. Both were 28 kilometres long.

To learn more, see: Snorre tie-in .

Sources
Lavik, Håkon. Statfjord. The largest oil field in the North Sea , Stavanger 1997, pp 117-119.
Regional impact assessment for the North Sea. Report 1a: Infrastruktur, utslipp, overvåkingsundersøkelser og miljøtiltak i Tampenområdet , Stavanger around 1999, p 37.