Decarbonizing Gas Production Through Fully Renewable Powered, Modular, Zandolie Offshore Production Platform
Authors: Pinto Pereira Rushil Berardo , Sankar Kiran Dale 
Published: April 2023

The minimum facility, normally unmanned, offshore gas production, Zandolie platform located in Block 1(a) on the west coast of Trinidad and Tobago, is presented in this paper. The facility utilizes a fully renewable power generation system and a modular design which reduces carbon emissions and installation costs in shallow water developments.

The design approach for the Zandolie platform minimized power consumption by careful design, selection and optimization of utilities, which led to an overall power draw of approximately 350 Watts. This significantly low power consumption meant that the platform, with a 25’ × 25’ deck, could be fully powered by two banks of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and one wind turbine, both feeding a battery system sized to provide 72 hours of backup power.

Additionally, the modular design of a topside "deckhouse" module, containing the communications panel, the controls and safety system panels, the solar and wind turbine panels, the batteries and the wellhead control panel to provide all required hydraulic power, meant that 90% of topsides installation and commissioning could be completed onshore, leading to significant reductions in offshore installation and commissioning time and cost, in addition to installation and support vessel carbon emissions as well as elimination of safety hazards associated with offshore activities.

The solar PV and wind power generation systems have proven effective in charging the battery system, with the platform having a successful one-time start-up, and maintaining 100% uptime since first gas in July 2022.

Onshore equipment installation and commissioning of the Zandolie platform topside deckhouse module was successfully completed in April 2022 within 3 weeks, with offshore installation and commissioning completed in June 2022 in less than 2 weeks. The modular design of the platform meant that the subsea structure, conductor and deck were all installed with a local Trinbagonian sourced, mat-supported jack-up drilling rig used for the well drilling and completion operations. Use of the drilling rig to perform the platform construction heavy lifts in addition to the drilling and well completions also significantly reduced installation and support vessel carbon emissions.

The total Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions per the GRI 305 standard is 0 kg CO2 eq during normal operations, leading to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions when compared to a traditional production platform with hydrocarbon power generation.

It can be concluded that this design approach successfully produces a template for a fully renewable, modular offshore gas production platform that can be replicated in shallow water developments.

This approach presents a method for combining fully renewable power generation with a modular, minimum facilities, normally unmanned platform design which significantly decarbonizes natural gas production, and it also reduces installation and operating costs while maintaining a high reliability and uptime.