STATOIL has warned that there will be fewer stand-alone development projects on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in the next few years, whereas the number of satellite fields and maintenance investments will increase.
“Access to attractive areas in unopened areas may modify this picture somewhat, but we, as an industry, must still adapt to the new realities,” Ståle Tungesvik, senior vice-president for reserves and business development in Statoil, said recently at a company round table. The 2009 investments have been record high. Statoil’s goal is to sustain production on the NCS at the current level in the years ahead.
“We are continuously working on our project portfolio, the aim being to realise the development of fields such as Gudrun, Valemon, Dagny and Luva. These are small-size fields in a historical perspective and the challenge is to make the projects profitable.
“As the operator, it is also our task to create solutions that our partners can support,” he said, adding that, in such turbulent times, this requires co-operation between the various operators, and that finding solutions could take longer than external forces might want.
Highlighting specific projects, Tungesvik said: “We very much want to accomplish the development of the Luva field. This may contribute to new infrastructure in the Norwegian Sea. Åsgard Transport is approaching the capacity limit and, in order for exploration for new resources in this area to be realistic, new infrastructure with free capacity is required.”
In addition to these projects, Statoil is looking at a significant number of upgrade projects, including revamping drilling facilities on the Oseberg and Gullfaks assets, plus boosting pressure support for Troll and Åsgard. Sizeable ongoing development projects on the NCS include Yttergryta, Alve, Tyrihans, Morvin, Gjøa, Vega, Skarv (BP), Vega Sor and Goliat (Eni). The last-named is due onstream in 2013 and is located in the Norwegian Barents Sea.
Finally, Statoil is also engaged on the huge Brent-style late-life redevelopment of Statfjord, where 30 years of production has just been celebrated. The Statfjord late-life project is designed to raise the recovery rate from the field to 66% for oil and 71% for gas. Statfjord remains one of the biggest producing fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). Some 4billion barrels oil equivalent have been produced to date.
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