Equinor Extending Life of Norway's Biggest Oil Field

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Norway's oil major Equinor has announced plans to invest 287 million euro ($353 million) in the North Sea Statfjord Øst field to improve recovery by 23 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe).

Statfjord Øst is tied back to the Statfjord C platform by pipelines. A total of four new wells will be drilled from existing subsea templates. The project also includes modifications on Statfjord C and a new pipeline for gas lift. Statfjord is the biggest oil field ever on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), containing close to 9 billion barrels of oil equivalent, and has been operational for almost 40 years. The Statfjord area covers the following licences: Statfjord Unit (or Statfjord main field), Statfjord Øst Unit, Statfjord Nord (PL 037) and Sygna Unit. The Statfjord Unit development covers the big Statfjord A, B and C concrete gravity base platforms while the other fields are subsea developments tied back to the main field platforms. Equinor is the main operator for all licences.

The Statfjord Øst development comprises subsea installations that include three templates. The field is located five kilometres northeast of Statfjord C and came onstream in 1994. Industrial Info is tracking all of the platforms and proposed projects.

"The decision to improve recovery on Statfjord Øst will add considerable value to society and owners and will create positive effects for suppliers," explained Kjetil Hove, Equinor's senior vice president for Field Life eXtension (FLX). "Our ambition is to maintain safe and profitable production and secure valuable activity from the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) for several decades. "We will be a leading late life operator on the NCS. In order to achieve this, we must work in new ways to reduce costs, thereby offering new opportunities for investments in late life fields ensuring profitable reservoir management. The Statfjord Øst decision is a good example of this."

The goal is to extend the life of the Statfjord C platform and the Statfjord Øst field towards 2040. The original oil volume in place on Statfjord Øst was 415 million barrels of oil with a recovery factor of 56%, but the new investment will boost the recovery factor to 62%.To date, the main field and satellites have produced almost 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

Last January, Equinor and its partners in the Statfjord area approved plans to extend production from the field towards 2040 and deferred the planned decommissioning of the Statfjord A platform in 2022 until 2027. It was also decided that the lives of Statfjord B and C would be extended beyond 2035. Around 100 new wells will be drilled toward 2030 while all three platforms will require "considerable investment and upgrading".

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