Equinor and its partners will invest £260 million in the North Sea Statfjord Ost field to improve recovery by 23 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Four new wells will be drilled from existing subsea templates on Statfjord Ost, which is tied back to the Statfjord C platform by pipelines.
The platform will require modifications and a new pipeline for gas lift will be laid.
Statfjord Ost’s original oil in place volume was 415 million barrels of oil and the current recovery factor is 56%.
As a result of this project, the recovery factor should increase to 62%.
Production start is scheduled for 2024.
Kjetil Hove, Equinor’s senior vice president for Field Life eXtension (FLX), said: “The decision to improve recovery on Statfjord Ost will add considerable value to society and owners and will create positive effects for suppliers.
“Our ambition is to maintain safe and profitable production and secure valuable activity from the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) for several decades.”
He added: “We will be a leading late life operator on the NCS. In order to achieve this, we must work in new ways to reduce costs, thereby offering new opportunities for investments in late life fields ensuring profitable reservoir management. The Statfjord Ost decision is a good example of this.”
The licence partners in Statfjord Ost Unit: Equinor Energy AS (31.6875%), Petoro AS (30.0000%), Vår Energi AS (20.5500%), Spirit Energy Norway AS (11.5625%), Idemitsu Petroleum Norge AS (4.8000%), Wintershall Dea Norge AS (1.4000%)