Neptune has completed the fourth and final development well at its operated Fenja field in the Norwegian Sea, in preparation for production start-up next year.
Located 75 miles north of Kristiansunds, Fenja lies at a water depth of 325 metres, and around 22 miles south west of the Equinor-operated Njord A platform, to which will the project will be tied back.
Operated by Neptune (30%), other partners in the project include Vår Energi (45%), Suncor Energy (17.5%), DNO (7.5%).
Drilling on the four-well campaign began last October using the semi-submersible Deepsea Yantai rig, operated by Odfjell Drilling, which has now completed two oil producers, one water injector and a gas injector.
The gas injector will later be converted to a gas producer towards the end of field life.
The two subsea templates will then be connected to Njord A via a production pipeline, water and gas injection pipelines and an umbilical.
Neptune hailed the “important milestone” in the development of the field, which is now scheduled to come on stream in the first quarter of 2023 and will produce approximately 28,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) at plateau.
Fenja has been developed with an electrically trace-heated (ETH) pipe-in-pipe solution that will transport oil from the Fenja field to the Njord A platform. At 37 kilometres, it is the world’s longest ETH subsea production pipeline.
Earlier this summer Equinor successfully pulled in the Fenja risers and dynamic umbilical to the host platform, which is now back on the field.
Final tie-in activities will be completed shortly and all subsea facilities are ready, Neptune said.
The company’s director of projects and engineering in Norway, Erik Oppedal, said: “The completion of the drilling campaign on the Fenja field represents the final step of the development project and we are now ready for production start-up. This region of the Norwegian Sea is a strategically-important growth area for Neptune, with high prospectivity.”
Meanwhile, the firm will look to spud its much-anticipated Isabella appraisal well later this year.
It has previously been described as “one of the most exciting prospects in the UK’s Central North Sea.”
Neptune holds a 50% non-operated stake in the prospect, alongside operator TotalEnergies (30%), Ithaca Energy (10%), and Euroil Exploration (10%), with the venture jointly investing $100m in the appraisal effort.
Results from the well are expected in mid-2023, which will support commercial decisions on what Neptune again called “a potentially significant future development.”