13 May 2013

Gas from the new York field in the Southern North Sea is now flowing from Centrica’s offshore platform and associated undersea pipeline through its Easington Terminal and into the National Grid. 

This has been achieved following the successful completion of the design and construction by Costain of the new onshore gas receiving and processing facility.

The Easington terminal, which already handles gas from the Rough gas storage field, was the site for a new process stream designed to handle up to 120 million ft³ a day natural gas output from the York field.

With overall North Sea oil and gas production dropping, new reserves are vital to help protect the UK’s energy security.

The approximate £80 million (TIC) on-shore element of the York project involved Costain providing design, procurement, construction management (as Principal Contractor) and commissioning support services for the new process stream in and around the existing operational facility – a major challenge as the Easington site is classified as a COMAH Tier 1 facility.

“If you think of the existing facility as a straight line running from left to right, our new facility zigzagged across it at several points,” said Project Manager, Mark Buckingham, who steered the job through its last six months as its culmination neared.

“We designed and installed a new gas receiving area, the new onshore York pipeline through the Easington site and a new process island inclusive of a Silica Gel drying operation along with a new emergency vent system for Easington site and York sales gas interface with the National Grid,” he said.

In an example of good housekeeping and sustainability, the project team was able to re-use some redundant process stream equipment from the older Amethyst Field flow, which also previously came ashore at Easington.  

The first gas flowed on 26 March, a few days after Costain demobilised from the project after having been on-site since September 2011. Work on final commissioning and fine-tuning of the new facility continues by the Centrica Operations team.

 

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