Norwegian oil company Aker BP has signed a deal with the recently established Aker Offshore Wind, to speed up the process of decarbonizing oil and gas assets and realizing offshore wind in Norway at large scale.
Astrid Skarheim Onsum, Chief Executive Officer of Aker Offshore Wind, an Aker Solutions spinoff, said: “We look forward to the opening of offshore wind acreage on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in 2021. Together with partners, suppliers, and yards, we would like to realize technology-driven commercial-scale projects and support the development of an offshore wind industry in Norway."
The two companies plan to collaborate on concepts for efficient development of large offshore wind farms to enable effective offtake to oil and gas producing assets on the NCS. Aker Offshore Wind is taking a role to develop and operate the wind farms. Aker BP will contribute with industry and technology competence and be a potential customer of electricity from offshore wind along with other operators.
"Electrifying assets using power from offshore wind could be a key enabler to achieve the next step-change in driving down emissions from operations,” said Karl Johnny Hersvik, Chief Executive Officer of Aker BP.
"We are excited about working with Aker BP, as well as other NCS operators, and leveraging the experience from the existing offshore industry on the NCS. Offshore wind is a global growth industry and we aim to use offshore wind on the NCS to drive down industry cost, introduce innovative technologies and digital solutions,” said Skarheim Onsum.