Offshore staff
LYSAKER, Norway – Aker BP is progressing studies on its North of Alvheim and Askja-Krafla (NOAKA) area project in the Norwegian North Sea, targeting gross resources of more than 500 MMboe.
Two development concepts are under review: one involves two unmanned production platforms with host support, and the other a central hub platform in the central part of the area, with processing and living quarters (PQ).
Discussions with the authorities in Norway have suggested that whichever concept is chosen, it should capture all discovered resources from multiple stranded fields in the area and facilitate future tie-ins of new discoveries.
Aker BP favors a new hub platform with the PQ, which it claims would lead to higher resource recovery and socio-economic benefits and would be better for exploiting additional resources that may be discovered through future exploration.
In addition, the company aims to make NOAKA the first energy-positive zero emissions field development on the Norwegian continental shelf, powered by electricity from shore combined with offshore wind, and to build on its experience at the Ivar Aasen project in the North Sea in terms of digitalization and automation, to attain maximum operational efficiency.
As for the company’s ongoing field developments offshore Norway, an operation started in late March to re-instate one of two shut-in wells at the Skarv field complex in the Norwegian Sea.
The company also plans to pull the x-mas tree from the last well and perform root cause analysis in order to prevent similar failures in future.
Two new water injection wells are due to be drilled at Ivar Aasen this year, followed by an exploration well to test the Slengfehøgda prospect and appraise the Hanz discovery.
In January, the company entered an agreement to acquire Fortis Petroleum Norway’s 20% interest in PL869 near the Bøyla field; 30% of PL677 near the Vilje field; and 10% of PL626 near the Hanz field, all in the North Sea.
During the current quarter Aker BP expects to have five rigs in operation drilling production and exploration wells and undertaking maintenance and well plugging.
In total this year, the company plans to participate in 12-14 (eight-10 operated) exploration wells, although the plan remains subject to continuous optimization.
It anticipates production in 2018 in the range of 155-160 MMboe/d; a production cost of around $12/boe; capex close to $1.3 billion; exploration expenditure of around $350 million, and a similar outlay for abandonment operations.
05/08/2018
