First Gas From Wingate
German Wintershall launched its first gas production as operator in the British North Sea last Sunday, 16 October 2011, with the Wingate platform. The platform in the British offshore concession 44/24b will initially produce 1.5 million cu. m. of natural gas. A second production well is expected to increase the production rate to 3 million cu. m. of natural gas as soon as next year. This flow will be enough gas to supply around 400,000 households. Photo courtesy of Aerolin.
“Our most recent investments of more than EUR 50 million in the Wingate project once again demonstrate that we still see considerable potential in the North Sea”, Martin Bachmann, member of the board of executive directors of Wintershall and responsible for Exploration and Production, explained. The company has been active in the North Sea for almost fifty years. Wintershall Noordzee is the operator of Wingate (49.5%); the consortium partners are Gazprom Germania (20%), Exxon Mobil (15.5%) and Gas-Union (15%).
Remote-Controlled Platform
The natural gas extracted from a depth of 3,700 m will be transported via pipeline to the GDF SUEZ platform D15-A, situated 20 km away in the Dutch North Sea. From this facility it will flow over a distance of about 300 km to the Dutch mainland near Uithuizen. Bachmann: “The production of gas from the Wingate platform is controlled via the Wintershall remote control room in Den Helder in the Netherlands.”
Twenty Platforms
To ensure the efficiency of its operations, Wintershall Noordzee operates one of the most modern centres for remote-controlled offshore platforms – The Center for Remote Controlled Operations (RCO). With the launch of Wingate, Wintershall now controls twenty platforms overall from this RCO centre in Den Helder, eighteen of them on the Dutch Continental Shelf, one platform in the German sector of the North Sea, and now the Wingate platform in the British Southern North Sea.