Norway's Sverdrup crude production halted by power outage: operator

Norway's highest-producing oil field, Johan Sverdrup, has temporarily halted production due to an issue with an onshore electricity transformer that powers the oil field facilities, operator Equinor said Nov. 18.

There is no current guidance on when production from the giant North Sea field will resume, an Equinor spokesperson told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

The Sverdrup facilities, on stream since 2019, are among several Norwegian offshore platforms that are connected to the country's renewables-based electricity grid to meet their operational needs -- the Sverdrup platforms rely on subsea cables from shore measuring some 200 km in length.

Power was interrupted when smoke was seen emerging from the onshore transformer, the spokesperson said, adding the incident had been "very quickly sorted out," however, the underlying causes would require investigation. Other fields in the vicinity, in an area known as the Utsira High, were unaffected, the spokesperson said. Two cables supply power from shore to the Sverdrup facilities, with the cable to the phase 2 platform currently continuing to supply to other nearby platforms, even as Sverdrup production is shut in, the spokesperson added.

Sverdrup crude output capacity is currently around 755,000 b/d, by far the highest in the North Sea, with the current "plateau" production rates expected to continue into 2025, Equinor said previously.

The field produces a medium sour crude not typical for the North Sea region.

Providing power from shore — and the hydropower-based national grid — is seen as a way to reduce the Norwegian industry's carbon footprint, while also freeing up for export oil and gas that might otherwise be combusted at offshore facilities to provide heat and power. However, the Nov. 18 incident is not the first of its kind, and Sverdrup previously suffered a number of power outages, notably in early-2023.

Sverdrup crude was last assessed by Platts at a $1.41/b discount to the North Sea Dated Strip on Nov. 15. Platts is part of S&P Global Commodity Insights.