Selection of Power From Shore for an Offshore Oil and Gas Development

With a step-out distance of 161 km and a design power of 55 MW, Martin Linge offshore gas field will be the longest ac submarine cable power supplying an entire offshore oil and gas platform from the shore. This field development comprises a platform with a jack-up rig and a floating storage offloading unit. This paper discusses the criteria that have been considered to select a power-from-shore concept instead of an offshore gas turbine power plant, which is the current practice in the offshore oil and gas industry. Since in a first approach, for such a long step-out distance, the choice of power from shore would be to select a dc transmission line, this paper discusses the design and the main technical challenges of this long step-out ac transmission development. Finally, the system approach that is required for the development of the onshore and offshore parts of the project is described.