First Caspian offshore wind could be floating as Socar plans oil-decarbonisation scheme

State oil & gas company signs up Technip Energies to explore use of moored wind power units to cut emissions from hydrocarbon production in the Caspian Sea

Darius Snieckus

Azerbaijan is jockeying its offshore wind sector forward, with state oil company Socar setting the seal on a deal with contractor Technip Energies to experiment with using a floating wind turbine to decarbonise offshore oil & gas operations in the Caspian Sea.

The move by Socar follows its signing of a memorandum of understanding with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Azerbaijan’s ministry of energy in April that has the mission of facilitating the historic oil basin’s energy transition to clean energy production off its coast.

“The cooperation agreement includes evaluation of a joint pilot project for offshore energy production on a floating wind turbine. The pilot project envisages energy supply for upstream operations in the Caspian Sea,” said the pair in a statement on what would be the first offshore wind project off Azerbaijan.

Socar president Rovnag Abdullayev said: “The energy efficiency is in focus of many energy companies and is an important part of Socar’s strategic plans. In line with the development trends of technology, we are already entering this area.

“Our goal is to reduce operating costs, increase energy efficiency and ensure the sustainability of operations at Socar. Upstream offshore oil & gas operations in the Caspian Sea currently use electricity generated from natural gas.”

Marco Villa, chief operating officer of Technip Energies, said: “We are proud to cooperate with Socar, which is committed to a sustainable development toward new energies. This collaboration is fully in line with our ambition to accelerating the transition toward a low carbon society”.

Floating wind’s role in decarbonising existing offshore oil & gas production is increasingly in the spotlight, with projects under consideration in every major offshore oil & gas province, including the North Sea, where the flagship Hywind Tampen project – which will hook up an array of spar-based units to the Snorre-Gullfaks field to reduce emissions by roughly a third – is now under construction.

The IFC, part of the World Bank, estimates capturing some large slice of a technical offshore wind energy potential in Azerbaijan at 157GW has the potential to “unleash this and transition from oil & gas to renewable energy”, to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and “vulnerability” to volatile crude markets.

Azerbaijan has had its eye on offshore wind since at least 2016, when state oil company Socar revealed plans for a first project in the Caspian Sea with capacity of 198MW.

The World Bank, in an interview with Recharge last year, said with strong winds, an established offshore energy industrial base in its oil & gas sector and government “interested” in offshore wind, Azerbaijan would appear an ideal location for the sector to expand into, with analysts Aegir Insights recently calculating the country’s offshore wind resource could be producing at a levellised cost of energy €90/MWh for bottom fixed, and of €162/MWh for floating offshore power by 2030.

Construction of a vast fleet offshore wind farms around the world could deliver 10% of the carbon emission reduction needed to reach the Paris Agreement target of keeping global heating to within 2.0℃ of pre-industrial levels, according to a recent report from an industry action group led by developers Orsted and Equinor, which is calling on international governments to muster a 1.4TW.

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