Cerulean and Ping sign UK wind power oil and gas deal

London-headquartered UK green energy infrastructure developer, Cerulean Winds, and Ping Petroleum UK today announced the signing of an agreement to create one of the UK’s first oil and gas facilities powered mainly by offshore wind.

Under the agreement signed in a meeting hosted by secretary of state, Kwasi Kwarteng, the production facility at Ping Petroleum’s Avalon site, located in the UK Central North Sea, will be mainly powered by floating offshore wind. The pioneering project will help meet the emissions reduction targets agreed between government and industry in the North Sea Transition Deal in March 2021.

The provision of wind power will remove up to 20,000 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions every year from the offshore production facility the equivalent of taking over 4,000 cars off the road.

Ping Petroleum UK acquired a 100 per cent stake in the Avalon site in August 2021, with production expected to begin in 2025. The field has a total estimated recovery of 23 million barrels of oil. The proposed development concept for the plans have already been cleared by the North Sea Transition Authority (NTSA), and a field development plan is to be submitted later this year.

As part of the agreement with Ping, Cerulean Winds have committed to fully manufacturing and assembling the offshore wind turbine in the UK. The project is expected to realise between £80-100m in investment in the development and in the UK’s renewable energy supply chain.

The project was enabled by a grant to Cerulean Winds through the Floating Offshore Wind Demonstration Programme from the UK Government’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to support the innovation and optimisation of the technology that will be deployed.

Tan Sri Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir, group managing director of DNeX, said: “As the world transitions to a low-carbon future, Ping is excited to be an early implementor of this revolutionary technology in the UK North Sea for our new greenfield project, Avalon.

“In addition, it enables us to seize market opportunities arising from the energy sector’s low-carbon transformation and development. The creation of an additional revenue stream via the supply of excess energy to nearby facilities will positively contribute to our financial performance.”

Dan Jackson, founding director of Cerulean Winds, said: “This innovative and pioneering project will be ‘Made in the UK’ and through our delivery partners, we will be realising significant investment in UK fabrication yards and ports.”

Business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “The North Sea oil and gas sector has been a major British industrial success story for decades. We must keep supporting production on the UK Continental Shelf for security of supply as we transition to clean, affordable, home-grown energy.”

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