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    1. Drilling & Completion

    Wintershall Dea cleared to resume drilling on Maria offshore mid-Norway

    Nov. 15, 2019
    Wintershall Dea has secured approval from Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority to use the Northern Drilling semisub West Mira for activities on the Maria field in the Norwegian Sea.
    (Courtesy DNV GL)
    The Northern Drilling semisub West Mira.
    The Northern Drilling semisub West Mira.

    Offshore staff

    OSLO, Norway – Wintershall Dea has secured approval from Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) to use the Northern Drilling semisub West Mira for activities on the Maria field in the Norwegian Sea.

    The production drilling and completion program, due to start this month, should last around 150 days.

    Maria is on the Haltenbanken, 25 km (15.5 mi) east of the Kristin field in 300 m (984 ft) water depth. It has been developed as a subsea tieback with two templates, with currently five producer and two water injector wells.

    Production started in 2017.

    In a separate development, the PSA performed an audit recently of Equinor and the design and manufacture of flexible risers for the Fenja subsea development and connection to the Njord field center.

    The aims were to verify that new flexible risers were being designed and manufactured in compliance with the company’s requirements and regulatory requirements.

    Following the review, the PSA identified improvement points in connection with testing of materials and design assumptions, and has given Equinor until Dec. 15 to respond.

    11/15/2019