Lundin Petroleum said it would double production to 70,000 barrels of oil per day by the end of 2015 and boost that again when the giant Johan Sverdrup field comes on line.
The news came as the firm announced today the drilling of an appraisal well at the Johan Sverdrup discovery on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation at Lundin were £178million in line with market expectations and down on £199million last year.
The company gave no new estimates of Sverdrup’s size and said it still expected the field – which is estimated to hold between 1.7 and 3.3 billion barrels of oil – to produce its first oil by the end of 2018.
Lundin and Statoil – the other major partner in Sverdrup – are working to narrow the range of the forecast for the field and are expected to produce new figures later this year.
Lundin confirmed its production guideline this year at between 33,000 and 38,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Earlier this week Lundin said its latest discovery in the North Sea, Luno II had gross contingent resources of 25 to 120 million barrels of oil equivalents (MMboe) for the south part of the find and a further 10-40 MMboe of gross prospective resources in the Northern section.
Lundin Chief Executive Ashley Heppenstall said the bottom end figure was conservative. He said more appraisal wells would be drilled this year and next and he was convinced Luno II would be a commercial project.