Troll, Oseberg fields' wind farm plans on hold

Norway's state-controlled Equinor has put on hold the development of an offshore wind project to power the Troll and Oseberg oil and gas fields "indefinitely", because of technology hurdles and rising costs.

The plan was for the construction of Trollvind — a floating offshore wind farm in the Troll area, around 65km west of Bergen, Norway — by 2027.

The firm said today that it can "no longer see a way forward to deliver on our original concept of having an operational wind farm well before 2030", adding that the project is no longer commercially sustainable.

The project was due to supply much of the power needed to run the Troll and Oseberg oil and gas fields — including Equinor's Kollsnes gas processing plant — via an onshore connection point, with extra power delivered to the Bergen region in southwest Norway, according to Equinor.

Equinor announced its decision to initiate feasibility studies for Trollvind in June last year. It said that the knowledge gained from working on the project will be applied to others, as the firm still seeks to develop floating offshore wind power at Utsira Nord and outside Norway.

Oil and gas installations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) emit around 13mn t of CO2 equivalent, according to Equinor, with electrification key to the firm's plans to reduce its emissions. Equinor plans to reduce its operated Scope 1 and 2 emissions — GHG emissions from direct operations and from energy consumption — by 50pc by 2030, from a 2015 baseline — with 90pc of the reductions to be absolute.

By Caroline Varin