As the oil and gas industry is finding ways to reduce carbon emissions in the offshore field, Aker Solutions is working on a concept that can achieve just that. Our concept produces electrical power using natural gas but without emitting CO2. This could help the energy transition while ensuring that the offshore field gets affordable, reliable and emission free power.

The concept is ZEUS, a Zero Emission Underwater power Station, that produces electrical power by burning natural gas and pure oxygen. ZEUS can produce emission free power from any type of natural gas including gas otherwise not economical (stranded gas and methane hydrates) and gas that otherwise cost money to get rid of (associated gas and CO2 rich gas). The power can then be used for offshore installations (individually or regionally) and/or sold to any suitable onshore grid. Taken together, this makes ZEUS not only an environmentally sustainable solution but an economically attractive solution as well.

The benefit of ZEUS for offshore field development is twofold; to produce emission free power from gas and improve field economics while doing so. To show this, a field case is introduced where the offshore field development concept with ZEUS is environmentally as well as economically competitive. Both environmental and economic key performance indicators, such as emission intensity and abatement cost for various development alternatives with the ZEUS concept, will be presented in comparison with the conventional offshore field development concepts.