Gullfaks is an oil and gas field in the Norwegian sector of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

operated by

Equinor Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger. It is primarily a petroleum company, operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renewable energy. I ...

. It was discovered in 1978, in block 34/10, at a water depth of 130-230 meters.Petterson, O., Storli, A., Ljosland, E., Nygaard, O., Massie, I., and Carlsen, H., The Gullfaks Field, 1992, in ''Giant Oil and Gas Fields of the Decade, 1978-1988'', AAPG Memoir 54, Halbouty, M.T., editor, Tulsa: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, , pp. 429-446 The initial recoverable reserve is , and the remaining recoverable reserve in 2004 is . This oil field reached peak production in 2001 at . It has satellite fields Gullfaks South, Rimfaks, Skinfaks and Gullveig.

Platforms

The project consists of three production platforms Gullfaks A (1986), Gullfaks B (1988), and Gullfaks C (1989). Gullfaks C sits below the waterline and the height of the total structure measured from the sea floor is , making it taller than the

Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed ...

. Gullfaks C is the heaviest object that has ever been moved to another position, relative to the surface of the Earth with a total displacement between 1.4 and 1.5 million tons. The platform produces of oil. The Tordis field, which is located south east of Gullfaks C, has a subsea separation manifold installed in 2007 which is tied-back to the existing Gullfaks infrastructure.Statoil
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Incidents

Between November 2009 and May 2010 a well being drilled from Gullfaks C experienced multiple well control incidents which were investigated by Petroleum Safety Authority Norway and summarized in a report released on 19 November 2010. The report stated that only chance prevented the final and most serious incident on 19 May 2010 from becoming a full-scale disaster.

Geology

The reservoir consists of delta

sandstones Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

from the Middle

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

Brent Group, shallow-marine Lower Jurassic Cook Formation sandstones, and the fluvial-channel and delta-plain Lower Jurassic Statfjord Formation.

References

External links

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Gullfaks (Statoil website)

Gullfaks facts and interactive map
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Offshore Technology
{{Resources in Norway Equinor oil and gas fields Natural gas fields in Norway North Sea oil fields Oil fields in Norway

Platforms

Incidents

Geology

See also

References

External links