Snøhvit is the first offshore development in the Barents Sea. Without surface installations, this project involves bringing natural gas to land for liquefaction and export from the first plant of its kind in Europe and the world’s northernmost liquefied natural gas facility.
Arctic LNG supplies from Snøhvit provide new opportunities for StatoilHydro in the US gas market. Snøhvit is the first major development on the Norwegian continental shelf with no surface installations.
The seabed facilities are designed to be over-trawlable, so that neither they nor fishing equipment will suffer any damage from coming into contact.
No fixed or floating units are positioned in the Barents Sea. Instead, the subsea production facilities stand on the seabed, in water depths of 250-345 metres. A total of 20 wells are due to produce gas from the Snøhvit, Askeladd and Albatross fields.
This output is transported to land through a 143-kilometre pipeline.
A total of nine wells are planned on Snøhvit, including eight for production and one for injecting carbon dioxide back below ground.
Six of the producers and the carbon dioxide injector were drilled during 2004-05, with the remaining two following in 2011.
In addition, the production wells were drilled on Albatross in 2005-06. This field also forms part of the Snøhvit development.
The Snøhvit and Albatross wells came on stream in 2007. The Askeladd part of the development is not due to come on stream until 2014-15.
