Offshore staff
KASSEL, Germany – Seadrill’s semisubmersible West Mira has completed the top-hole drilling campaign on the Wintershall Dea-operated Nova field in the Norwegian North Sea ahead of schedule.
The campaign involved drilling some 3,400 m (11,155 ft) of top holes for the six Nova production and water injection wells on two different templates. Water depth is 370 m (1,214 ft).
Five of the top holes were drilled in one batch with repetitive operations. After each operation the team evaluated the performance, capturing best practices and lessons learned to optimize the equipment and drill the next section even more efficiently. This approach helped to continuously improve the drilling performance, the company claimed.
André Hesse, Nova Project Director at Wintershall Dea, said: “With all the top holes drilled, we have achieved another Nova milestone ahead of plan. We will continue drilling and the next step is to safely deliver the three production wells and three water injection wells before production start which is planned for 2022.”
The Nova field is about 120 km (75 mi) northwest of Bergen and approximately 17 km (11 mi) southwest of the Neptune Energy-operated Gjøa platform.
It is being developed as a subsea tieback connecting two templates to the existing Gjøa platform. Gjøa will receive the production fluids and provide injection water and lift gas to the Nova field. Oil from Nova will be transported from Gjøa through the Troll Oil Pipeline II to Mongstad, associated gas will be exported via the Far North Liquids and Associated Gas System pipeline to St Fergus in the UK.
Wintershall Dea is the operator and has a 45% stake in the Nova project. The other partners are Spirit Energy Norge AS (20%), Edison Norge AS (15%), Sval Energi AS (10%), and ONE-Dyas Norge AS (10%).
02/12/2021
