Milestone in powering our operations with renewable energy

Gullfaks and Snorre fields reached a milestone in implementing a wind farm, which will make five platforms in the North Sea, the first in the world directly connected to an offshore wind farm. OMV is involved in this project through a 19% stake in the Gullfaks field.

The Norwegian authorities have now approved the plan for development and operation. The wind farm is a pioneering project and a contribution to reducing emissions from the two oil and gas fields.

By replacing the platforms' on-site electricity, currently generated by natural gas turbines with renewable electricity from wind turbines, the project will help to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 200,000 tonnes per year, corresponding to annual emissions from 100,000 private cars (assuming 96g CO2 emissions per 100 km driven).

The offshore wind farm will consist of 11 floating wind turbines based on the Hywind wind farm concept. The turbines will have a total capacity of 88 MW and meet about 35% of the annual power demand of the five platforms Snorre A and B and Gullfaks A, B and C. The wind farm will be located around 140 kilometers from shore, between the Snorre and Gullfaks platforms, at a water depth of 260 to 300 meters. This Hywind Tampen project is scheduled for start-up at the end of 2022.

OMV seeks to reduce the emissions from our operations both through conventional ways of reducing CO2 (i.e. energy efficiency, equipment and process improvements, reducing methane leaks and flaring) as well as developing ways to power our operations through renewable energy. All our GHG reduction projects implemented in our operating countries between 2009 and 2019 have delivered a total reduction of 1.8 mn t CO2 equivalent to date.

With these measures, OMV contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy- and SDG 13 - Climate Action.

Find out more about OMV’s C02 management and progress here.