Helen Knight

Win-win situation for wind powered oil recovery

News

Wind power could be used to help recover more oil from offshore fields, thanks to a project investigating the use of floating turbines to power water injection systems.

In enhanced oil recovery, water is pumped into a reservoir to increase the pressure, stimulating production and helping to extract more oil from the well.

In a project known as WIN WIN, or Wind-powered Water Injection, researchers led by the classification society DNV-GL have been investigating the idea of using a floating wind turbine to generate the electricity needed to power the water injection system, according to project manager Johan Slätte.

“There is a big focus in the oil and gas industry at the moment on identifying means of reducing the environmental footprint,” he said. “There is also a drive to give oil and gas operators a means of establishing water injection facilities further from the host platform.”

By using floating wind as the power source, operators could locate offshore water injection systems where they are most needed, instead of being governed by their distance from the host platform, Slätte said.

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