HSE Annual Report 2010 (English) - WINTERSHALL

OFFSHORE ENvIRONMENTAL PROTECTION.
The North Sea has been one of the world’s most
important hydrocarbon production regions for
decades. Wintershall itself has been involved in
producing natural gas there since 1965 and operates
26 platforms in its southern part. It also has
offshore activities in Argentina and Libya. The expansion
of offshore expertise is generally gaining
importance in the exploration and production of
oil and gas, and the company applies this expertise
to its activities in other regions of the world.
Wintershall Noordzee is based in Rijswijk near
The Hague, and is home to the corporate-wide
competence center for offshore technology.
RECYCLING OFFSHORE pLATFORMS
The conditions for producing oil and gas at sea
are challenging. A production platform must be
equipped to cope with the wind, weather, heavy
seas, water quality and much, much more. The
average service life of a platform is approximately
25 years. After this they are usually disassembled
and scrapped. Wintershall has now logically and
beneficially combined ecology and economy in this
area with the conversion and modernization of two
platforms in the Dutch sector of the North Sea.
In addition to natural gas production platform
L5-C, E18-A has also been completely converted
and modernized so that it can be moved on and
produces elsewhere. The conversion of the old
platforms saves costs, time and material compared
to a completely new construction, as a large part
of the installations can be reused.
The predecessor to the E18-A platform, p14-A,
was built in 1993, later dismantled at its location
in the Dutch sector of the North Sea and towed
to a shipyard in Rotterdam. The platform’s body,
with its several decks and a helipad, were completely
reconditioned and modernized at a yard
in Ridderkerk. Reuse of a large part of the p14-A
platform meant that 500 tons of steel and a considerable
amount of energy – around 2.5 million
kWh – were saved. The E18-A was equipped
solely with electric generators to minimize emissions.
A supply line to the adjacent F16-A provides
the E18-A with electricity and operating resources
and enables data to be transferred. As a result, it
was possible to reduce the number of visits to the
platform, which meant fewer helicopter flights and
ship transports, hence reducing emissions.
MITTELpLATE
The Mittelplate platform in the UNESCO world
cultural heritage site of the Wattenmeer in
Schleswig-Holstein is the only oil producing
facility operated from German waters. New and
innovative technical solutions were necessary
to develop the crude oil reserves at Mittelplate
safely and ecologically. The 70 by 95 meter platform
was built on the tidelands of the Mittelplate
and protected on the sea side by a liquid-tight
concrete-and-steel basin with sheet pile walls
of eleven meters in height, so that there can be
no uncontrolled discharges or seepage from it.
Drilling and production operations are protected
by sophisticated monitoring and control systems
that provide multiple safeguards. Subsurface and
surface safety valves can be activated automatically,
manually and by remote control. Finally,
laying a pipeline to the Dieksand land-based
station eliminated the need for around 2,000 ship
movements to remove the crude oil in doublehulled
vessels.
HEALTH SAFETY ENVIRONMENT