Ancala Midstream has won a multi-million pound deal to transport gas from the prolific Edvard Grieg Area in Norway for processing in Scotland.
The Aberdeen-headquartered infrastructure firm was awarded the “life of field” deal, understood to be in excess of £10million, for the Solveig field, a tie-back to Edvard Grieg.
Gas will be transported and processed via the Ancala-operated Scottish Area Gas Evacuation (SAGE) pipeline and terminal at St Fergus in Aberdeenshire.
Solveig, operated by Lundin Energy Norway, is expected to achieve first gas in the third quarter of this year.
Ancala will also provide transportation and processing for an extended production test on Lundin’s Rolvsnes discovery, due to start up in Q3 2022.
Both are tie-backs to the main Edvard Grieg field, which started up production in 2015.
Ancala said Solveig will be the first of two new fields tying into SAGE in 2021, increasing throughput in the system to 55%.
In 2019 the firm won a multi-million pound deal for Zennor Petroleum’s Finlaggan field, which had been due to start up in 2020, but has been pushed back to Q4 of this year due to Covid.
Ancala CEO Jim Halliday said: “The addition of two new fields and the substantial reserves growth from the prolific Edvard Grieg area, provides further evidence of the strong prospectivity in the SAGE catchment area, as well as the confidence our customers have in the SAGE System as their offtake system of choice.
“We have worked closely with Lundin to develop innovative solutions to the technical challenges faced and in doing so reduced project development costs for the Solveig and Rolvsnes Owners.”
It comes after Ancala acquired operatorship of the SAGE system and a 60% stake in the associated Beryl pipeline from Apache in 2017, handled through Ancala subsidiary, SAGE North Sea Limited (SNSL).
Mr Halliday added that the firm’s growth since 2017 “shows that our operating and commercial strategy is delivering results”.
In Norway, Edvarg Greig now has “ultimate” proven plus probable reserves of 350million barrels of oil equivalent, according to Lundin Energy, up from an initial 186million estimate when the development and operation plan was first submitted.
Managing director of Lundin Energy Norway, Kirstin Faerovik, said: “We greatly appreciate the support we have received from the Ancala Midstream team in securing the transportation and processing agreements for the Solveig and Rolvsnes fields, which are key elements of our Edvard Grieg field hub growth strategies.”
The SAGE system comprises a 200mile, 30-inch bore pipeline and a gas processing terminal.
Gas is transported through the Beryl Pipeline and SAGE pipeline and processed in the SAGE terminal from multiple fields across the UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea.
The terminal also processes gas received by way of the Britannia pipeline which serves the Britannia field and its satellites.