Floating offshore wind to power North Sea oil and gas field

Floating offshore wind is set to power an oil and gas field in the UK Central North Sea.

The new agreement, endorsed by the Business Secretary, will see the production facility at Ping Petroleum’s Avalon site, to be mainly powered by floating offshore wind.

As the UK is trying to boost its homegrown energy supply amid the growing instability of the international markets, the deal is expected to support these efforts.

The partners behind the project, green energy infrastructure developer Cerulean Winds and Ping Petroleum UK aim to develop what they claim to be the UK’s first oil and gas facilities powered mainly by offshore wind.

Cerulean Winds will build the floating offshore wind turbine that will be hooked up to Ping Petroleum’s Floating Production & Storage Offloading vessel through a cable.

Powering the field with floating offshore wind is forecast to remove up to 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year from the offshore production facility.

The field, which has a total estimated recovery of 23 million barrels of oil, is expected to start production in 2025.

Dan Jackson, Founding Director of Cerulean Winds, said: “This project will demonstrate how we can harness the power of affordable, offshore wind to deliver significant reductions in the carbon emissions of oil and gas production.

“The UK has a golden opportunity to make our domestic oil and gas production the cleanest in the world.”