Statoil Reveals North Sea Development Plan

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Norway's state-owned oil and gas giant, Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO) (Stavangar, Norway) has outlined plans to spend around $120 million in developing new parts of the North Sea.

The company and its partners said they have submitted plans for the development and operation of the new Byrding--formerly known as the Astero--oil and gas discovery in the North Sea, using existing infrastructure. The discovery is located 3.8 kilometres (km) north of Fram and 27km south-west of Gjøa in water depths of 360 metres. Statoil holds a 45% interest in the project and said it hopes to use existing infrastructure to cut costs.

The field is estimated to have recoverable volumes at approximately 11 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and will be operational for around a decade.

The Byrding development includes a duo-lateral well drilled from the existing Fram H-Nord subsea template through which oil and gas from Byrding will flow to Troll C, Statoil explained. The duo-lateral well will be seven kilometres long, with the first kilometres being shared by the two laterals. Oil and gas will be piped from there through existing pipelines to Mongstad and Kollsnes respectively.

"This is another example of a new discovery being realised through existing infrastructure," said Torger Rød, Statoil's senior vice president for project development. "Byrding shows that successful improvement efforts in Statoil, and in this case particularly within drilling and well, allow new development projects to be realised. Combined with the use of an available well slot in an existing subsea template, this reduces the costs of the project substantially. The project is profitable also in the current oil price environment."

Using existing infrastructure has cut the costs of the project from a previous estimate of $350 million to its current estimate of $120 million. The field is scheduled to come on stream in the third quarter of 2017.

Tomas Mørch, Northern North Sea assistant director of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) welcomed the news: "It is very positive that Byrding is now being developed and is contributing to value creation both for society at large and for the licensees. Good dialogue between the different players is the key to finding good area solutions."

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, five offices in North America and 10 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Our European headquarters are located in Galway, Ireland. Follow IIR Europe on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn For more information on our European coverage send inquiries to info@industrialinfo.eu or visit us online at Industrial Info Europe.