Norway: Offshore Digitalisation
Statoil Establishes Integrated Operations Support Centre
| Editor: Alexander Stark
Statoil has established an integrated operations support centre and a drilling operations centre in Bergen. The centres will be connected to all Statoil installations on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS), starting this year.
Stavanger/Norway — Up to 2020, the Norwegian company plans to invest in the range of NOK 1-2 billion (approx. $ 128-256 million) in digital technology to create higher value and improve operations.
According to the company, the two new centres will help improve production efficiency and production potential on the NCS. In December, Statoil also opened an operations support centre in the USA, that is currently monitoring the company’s over 1,100 onshore wells.
In new field developments oil and gas production will increasingly be carried out from unmanned, robotised, standardised and remote controlled installations, Statoil’s chief operating officer (COO) Jannicke Nilsson announced. Many operations would be carried out by less risky working situations, she added.
Predictive Maintenance
The integrated operations support centre (IOC) will enable more proactive decision-making support through interdisciplinary collaboration and better utilisation of operating data and digital technologies. Building on existing condition monitoring and specialist centres in Norway, the IOC centre will further strengthen interaction between offshore and onshore, and our interaction with suppliers and partners.
The centre is scheduled to open after the summer season, and gradually support all Statoil-operated fields and installations on the NCS. The first fields to be connected are Gina Krog and Grane in the North Sea as well as Åsgard in the Norwegian Sea.
Drilling Operations Supported by Scientists On Land
The other centre to be established will offer geoscience support of drilling operations. Monitoring and control of offshore well path drilling will be moved from offshore installations to a joint geoscience operations centre. The centre will be ready to support its first operations already this autumn.
