Gullfaks C approved by the Storting

The Storting’s approval was based on the field development plan that the partners in the Gullfaks licence, Statoil, Norsk Hydro and Saga Petroleum, had submitted to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in February 1985.

Ahead of this plan, there had been discussions related to the choice of concept for further development. Was a platform the right choice, or should a less extensive development be considered instead? That Gullfaks C could largely be built as a copy of Gullfaks A was one of the reasons why this solution was ultimately chosen. The main difference was that the C platform would stand in deeper water and therefore had to be built taller than A.

Another reason why Gullfaks C ended up in its final form was that the alternative solution would have had to wait a few years until there was available capacity in the processing plant on Gullfaks A.

You can read more about the discussions concerning the development solution for the platform and oil transport in “Disagreement over the development solution for Gullfaks C”.

Another interesting perspective is the fact that the development of Gullfaks C was accelerated. This was due to the Sleipner field development being put on hold because the British authorities had not approved the purchase of gas from the field. Read more in the article “Gullfaks C moves up in the queue”.