Construction for Statoil’s flagship Johan Sverdrup project has officially begun.
Today, Kværner metal worker Stian Myrvold Green flipped the switch on the machine tasked with cutting steel for the riser platform jacket.
When finished the jacket will be the biggest in Europe, weighing in at 26,500tonnes.
Once on stream, the massive Johan Sverdrup find is expected to account for 40% of the total oil production for the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
Senior vice president for the Johan Sverdrup development project, Kjetel Digre, said: “This is a special day. We’ve been working thoroughly for a long time making the preparations for this exciting and complex project. It feels great now that we’ve started construction on one of the biggest industrial projects in Europe.
“The steel jacket will also be one of the most complex ever built by the industry. Not only will we route the land-based power through the jacket, we’ll also be controlling the subsea water injection and exporting the field’s oil and gas from it. In addition, we’re also preparing to tie in future phases of the Johan Sverdrup field development to the riser platform. In building this jacket, we’re in fact making preparations to take in as many as 56 conduits.”
Investment costs for full field development are estimated to be in the region of NOK170-220 billion (2015 value) with recoverable resources of between 1.7 and 3 billion barrels oil equivalent.
Statoil aims to achieve a 70% recovery rate.
Digre added: “We’ve got an ambitious plan to bring Johan Sverdrup on stream in late 2019 and in accordance with this plan, we’ve now started to produce first building bricks for the project.”
The Johan Sverdrup partnership consists of Statoil, Lundin Norway, Petoro, Det norske oljeselskap and Maersk Oil. The partnership has recommended that Statoil be operator for all the field’s phases.
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