Repsol’s Yme Venture Hits One other Speedbump With Six-Week Shutdown

Printed
Sep 12, 2022 6:27 PM by


The Maritime Govt

Repsol’s stop-and-start efforts to revive the mature Yme oilfield off the coast of Norway hit one other speedbump final week, associate firm OKEA mentioned in an announcement Friday. 

The sector’s course of pipe system has sustained harm, Repsol has knowledgeable OKEA, requiring 5 to 6 weeks of manufacturing downtime for repairs. 

Yme is a restart venture on a well-developed discipline. The earlier operator, Statoil, operated the venture from 1996-2001, when it shut it down attributable to unprofitably low oil costs. Right this moment’s excessive oil costs and manufacturing expertise prompted Repsol to take over and revive the sphere utilizing a jackup drilling/manufacturing unit, the Maersk Inspirer. The unique manufacturing platform at Yme had structural points, and it was decommissioned and eliminated in 2016. With Maersk Inspirer hooked as much as the sphere’s current wells, the venture got here again on-line with “first oil” in October 2021. 

The sector’s reserves quantity to only over 60 million barrels, and Repsol and its companions hope to realize a plateau manufacturing stage of greater than 50,000 boepd. The brand new shutdown comes simply as Repsol was planning to ramp up output for full manufacturing. 

In Might, Repsol was pressured to briefly shut in Yme attributable to a minor oil spill emanating from a pipe between the platform and a subsea storage tank. The discharge resulted in a light-weight floor sheen. Manufacturing was rapidly restarted with output diverted onto a tanker as a substitute of the storage tank. 

It was not the primary hiccup. In November 2021, simply weeks after the venture got here on-line, Repsol needed to shut it down briefly attributable to “excessive oil in water readings.”

.