Statoil today submitted a field development plan for the (5.5 billion NOK) £540million Trestakk discovery in the Norwegian Sea.
The discovery, made in 1986, contains about 76 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent, Statoil said.
The project will be tied back to the Åsgard A oil production vessel, with planned production start-up anticipated in 2019.
Torger Rod, head of project development at Statoil, said: “Trestakk is a good example of what is possible to achieve through spending time on working toward the best concept selection.
“By rethinking our concept along with license partners and suppliers, we have arrived at a solution that costs almost 50% less than the original concept.
“At the same time, we have been able to increase the recoverable resources significantly.”
The first investment estimates were around £990million, which was reduced to £690million when the concept selection was made in January 2016.
That figure has been lowered again to just over £540million.
Statoil said the reductions had been achieved through “rethinking concept, simplifying and reducing scope in addition to capitalizing on recent efficiency improvement initiatives”.
Mr Rod said: “This shows what we, as an industry, have managed to achieve in just a few years’ time.
“The Norwegian supplier industry has in recent years shown a great ability to find good, cost-effective solutions that have made it possible to realize projects such as Trestakk, even though the oil price is low.”