The N05-A project is an offshore gas production platform proposed to be developed in approximately 25m to 30m deep water, about 20km north of the Borkum, Rottumerplaat, and Schiermonnikoog islands in the Dutch North Sea, offshore Netherlands.
Located approximately 1.5km away from the German maritime area, the N05-A gas platform will be the first in the Dutch offshore industry to run completely on offshore wind power. The integration of sustainable energy sources in the offshore project will reduce carbon emissions by 85% over the project life.
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The platform is operated by ONE-Dyas, a Dutch exploration and production company. ONE-Dyas’ partners in the development include Hansa Hydrocarbons, a subsidiary of UK-based upstream oil and gas firm Discover Exploration, and Energie Beheer Nederland (EBN), a Dutch state-owned energy company.
The licence partners will extract natural gas from the N05-A gas field and other surrounding fields situated in the German and Dutch sections of the North Sea.
N05-A project background
The N05-A project is a part of Gateway to the Ems (Gems), a joint initiative of ONE-Dyas, Discover Exploration, and EBN. The Gems development encompasses an area to the north of the Ems estuary on the border between Germany and the Netherlands. It involves the development of smaller gas fields in the Ems estuary area. Production from the Gems project is expected to begin in 2024 and will last for ten to 25 years.
The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Change released the draft permits and the environmental impact report (EIR) for the project for public review in April 2021. The permit applications for the N05-A project, including the environmental impact assessment (EIA), were submitted to the Ministry of Economic Affairs in October 2021.
Discovery and geology
The N05-A field was discovered by the exploratory drilling in block N05-A in 2017. It is located near several prospects such as Diamant, N05-A-Noord, N05-A-Sudost, and Tanzanlet-Oost.
The field lies in the Permian Lower Rotliegendes in which the sandstones have a net high permeability interval of 24m.
A drill stem test in the vertical well demonstrated 53 million metric cubic feet of gas per day (Mmcfgpd) and discovered the first well Ruby in the basal Rotliegend sands. The well was sidetracked for appraisal in August 2017. Hansa Hydrocarbons confirmed the discovery of the new N05-01-S1 wildcat field in block N05 in September 2017.
N05-A gas field development details
The N05-A gas field will be developed with the drilling of up to 12 wells at the location, some of which will belong to N05-A while the rest of them will belong to the adjacent prospects for which the recoverable quantities of gas are yet to be determined.
The objective of the project is to install an unmanned platform N05-A2, construct a pipeline, and extract a maximum of 7.5 billion normal square metres (Nm³) of natural gas from the N05-A field. Test drilling will be carried out in four adjacent prospects, namely N05-A Noord, N05-A Sudost, Tanzaniet-Oost and Diamant.
The project aims to recover up to 5.7 billion normal square metres of natural gas from the N05-A-North, 0.8 billion normal square metres of natural gas from the N05-A Sudost field, one billion normal square metres of natural gas from the Tanzanite-East field, and 7.3 billion normal square metres of natural gas from the Diamant field if natural gas is found in the prospects.
The field is expected to have a production rate of up to four million normal square metres of natural gas a day. The production rate will be up to six million normal square metres of natural gas a day if gas is found in all four adjacent prospects.
The extracted gas from the field will be transported to the mainland gas transport network through a pipeline.
The wells will be closed upon completion of the gas extraction while the platform and pipelines will be decommissioned.
Power supply for the N05-A platform
The N05-A offshore gas platform will be powered by the nearby 113.4MW Riffgat offshore wind farm built in the German North Sea by German utility EWE in 2013.
Located approximately 15km to the northwest of the Borkum island, Germany, the wind farm is equipped with 30 Siemens SWT-3.6-120 wind turbines.
