First remotely controlled offshore platform in Norway
On the 9th November, Statoil made an important step towards making history, with the opening of the Valemon control room at Sansli in Bergen.
The Valemon platform, located in the North Sea offshore Norway, will be the first platform in Norway to be remotely-controlled from land.
“This is a vital milestone for Statoil. We have had land-based surveillance and control of offshore operations for a long time, however, the remote control of Valemon marks one important step forward on our digitalisation journey,” said Gunnar Nakken, head of the operations west cluster in Statoil.
14 operators, divided on seven shifts, will man Valemon’s onshore control room.
Valemon is designed and constructed for such remote control. Statoil has currently no other platforms of this kind, but this solution will undoubtedly be considered for other small and medium-sized platforms in the future, and remote control will be a central building block, the company said.
“Most of our production will still be carried out on large, manned platforms, such as Aasta Hansteen and the Johan Sverdrup platform, but for somewhat smaller platforms and fields it will absolutely be considered. First, we must gain experience from Valemon,” Mr Nakken said.
The Valemon field came on stream in 2015, 30 years after the field was discovered in 1985.