The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has given permission to ConocoPhillips for it to employ the jack-up drilling rig Maersk Innovator to drill eight subsea water injection wells on the Ekofisk field in the Norwegian part of the North Sea.
The purpose of the campaign is to enable delivery of sufficient injection water to maintain the formation pressure in the southern part of the Ekofisk field on block 2/4.
The field was discovered in 1969 and is the oldest of the oil and gas fields on the Norwegian Shelf that is still producing. It is located about 280km southwest of Stavanger.
Templates for the new water injection wells will be placed about 1km east of the Ekofisk 2/4A facility where the water depth is about 73m. Drilling will start in June at the earliest the programme is expected to run for two years.