Norway projects rolling forward

Late last year, Norway’s Energy Ministry predicted submissions for seven new projects by mid-2005. In fact, the wheels started rolling in four cases before Christmas, and details of a fifth scheme emerged in January.

First up was Statoil’s NKr3.4-billion plan to raise new reserves from satellites of its Gullfaks field in the North Sea. One of these is Rimfaks, which Statoil brought onstream in June 2000 as a tieback to the Gullfaks A platform. Here, Statoil aims to lift recovery from 33 to 41% - equivalent to 36 MMboe - through drilling new wells. Statoil will exploit Skinfaks, a hitherto untouched discovery rated at 31 MMboe, through a subsea production system tied into existing templates on Gullfaks South, with production continuing on to the Gullfaks C platform. In total, eight producers will be drilled on the two satellites, including one multilateral with zone control and gas lift.

Shortly afterward, Norsk Hydro awarded Kværner Oilfield Projects (KOP) a NKr360-million engineering, procurement, and construction contract for subsea systems for its Fram East development, 20 km north of the Troll field and in much deeper water (360 m). (See Subsea Systems, page 18).

A fortnight later, Hydro issued its proposals for Vilje, a 50-MMbbl oilfield formerly known as Klegg. As expected, Hydro will produce this field through Marathon’s Alvheim floating platform 19 km away, with at least two horizontal producer wells. Hydro put the cost at NKr2 billion.

The most unusual plan - if not unexpected - was Statoil’s choice of a jackup to produce its Volve field in the southern Viking Graben area between Sleipner and Heimdal. According to London-based field analysts Scanboss, Volve lies in Jurassic-Triassic Horizons. Following discovery in 1993, it was appraised with two further wells in the late 1990s. Early last year, Statoil issued a new estimate for the reserves of 60 MMbbl of oil and 1 bcm of gas.

At one point, the company had considered transferring the leased FPSO from its nearby Glitne field to Volve, but ruled this out when Glitne’s output exceeded expectations. The chosen jackup is the MærskInspirer, which will serve as a production platform on Volve, with oil stored on the tanker Navion Saga, to be chartered from Teekay Norge.

Depending on field performance, the Mærsk/Teekay contracts could be tagged at up to NKr4 billion. Volve’s gas will be piped 8 km south to the Sleipner A platform for processing and export. Three producers, three water injectors, and two water producers will be drilled, with plateau output forecast at 50,000 b/d. The field should come online early in 2007, hopefully producing for at least four years.

Finally, Statoil is edging toward sanction for its long-anticipated Statfjord late life project, which involves depressurizing the Statfjord reservoir to switch from oil to gas production. An environmental statement was recently issued to the UK Department of Trade and Industry. The reason being that some of the gas will feed across the median line into the UK’s offshore transportation system via a proposed new 23-km export pipeline, the $250-million Tampen Link. This will be linked to the Statfjord A, B, and C platform via existing inter-field pipelines and a new riser. On the UK side, the line will terminate at a tee in the Flags system, a short distance south of Brent A. Until now, Statfjord’s gas has been re-injected into the reservoir.

Shell abandons ‘ship’ fields

Shell has joined the list of majors selling field centers in the southern North Sea, although it has also sanctioned one new minor development. Under a $390-million package, Tullow Oil has acquired virtually the entire production interests held by Shell and its partner Esso in the Schooner and Ketch gas fields in blocks 44/26a and 49/28b. The fields were developed in the mid to late 1990s, with gas in both cases transported to Theddlethorpe in Lincolnshire via the Caister-Murdoch System trunkline. Less than a quarter of their combined in-place reserves of 1.5 tcf has been produced, and Tullow will look to raise recovery to 50% through a program of workovers, sidetracks, and new wells. Tullow also plans to evaluate the Schooner Extension prospect, southeast of the main field.

Just to the south, in Quadrant 49, Shell has authorized a new minimum facilities platform for the Cutter accumulation, which will be tied back to its Carrack facility (onstream in December 2003) via a 15-km, 16-in. pipeline and a separate glycol line. The 750-tonne platform is under construction at the Genius Vos yard in Ijmuiden, The Netherlands, and should be installed this July. The same yard is building a similar structure for Gaz de France’s K17&-FA project in the Dutch sector.