Statoil plans to have a 700-strong north-east workforce for two major UK North Sea heavy oil fields, it revealed at Offshore Europe today.
The Norwegian firm, which had put its £6billion combined Mariner and Bressay field projects on hold after the UK Government’s oil and gas tax grab was announced, is now pushing ahead with progressing the developments.
Statoil will need an onshore and offshore workforce of 700 people, up from an earlier estimate of 600, to be based from Aberdeen.
A final investment decision on the Mariner project is expected to be made by the end of next year with procurement for the development due to start shortly after.
The decision on the Bressay project will be made after that.
Peter Mellbye, executive vice president for development and production international for Statoil, said there would be an emphasis on local staffing and that they were due to start looking for a headquarters in Aberdeen.
“We will start work pretty soon, towards the end of next year, building up an organisation here,” he said.
Despite the project being re-launched after the government announced an increase to the Ring Fenced Expenditure Supplement, the development would not be Statoil’s most profitable, Mr Mellbye said.
“This is something we’ve been working on for many years,” he said. “We had come to a point earlier this year of making a decision, but the tax decision meant we had to put it on hold.
“We now believe this is going to be a profitable project.”
However, he added: “It is a challenging project and it is not the most profitable venture in our portfolio.”
The two fields are close to each other in the northern North Sea close to the boundary with the Norwegian North Sea.
Mariner has recoverable reserves of 300-500million barrels of oil, Mr Mellbye said.
It is to be developed with an integrated platform with an 18,000 ton jacket and 25,000 ton topsides and will have 50 well slots with about 70 wells.
Production is due to start in 2016 and a floating storage unit will be used.
Two options for Bressay’s development, with recoverable reserves of 200-300million barrels of oil, are being looked at – one the same as Mariner and a second with a wellhead platform and floating production vessel.
Aker Solutions was awarded a £14million front end engineering design contract for the Mariner project in July after a Government tax concession made the project viable, Statoil said.
Speaking at a briefing, Mr Mellbye also outlined Statoil’s broader strategy – to build “material positions in three two five offshore business centres”.
It was focused on Norway, Gulf of Mexico, Angola, Brazil and the UK.
He said the firm was spending £1.8billion a year on exploration and would be drilling 20 to 25 wells next year.
Today it was reported the firm’s next exploration target will be at King Lear in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea near the Ekofisk field.
Statoil plans to have production of more than 2.5million barrels a day in 2020 – 1.4million of that in Norway, 500,000 in North America and the rest from elsewhere in the world.
