Statoil gains Alfa Sentral stake

Norwegian giant Statoil inked a US$15 million deal that will increase its presence on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and UK Continental shelf with the acquisition of stake in the Afla Sentral field.

Map of Alfa Sentral. From Statoil.

Statoil acquired 24% interest from First Oil’s 24% in the UKCS license P312 in the Alfa Sentral field. Both P312 and PL046 on the NCS, in which Statoil has operatorship and 62% interest, comprise the Alfa Sentral field. 

JX Nippon operates P312 with 45% interest, along with parnter Talisman Sinopec with 31%.

Alfa Sentral is a 60 MMboe gas and condensate field planned to be developed as a tie-back to the existing infrastructure for the Statoil-operated Sleipner on the NCS, which will increase the utilization of the Sleipner facilities.

The transaction, expected to close by the end of 2015, will increase Statoil's equity holding in a high priority project in a core area, deepening its presence on both the NCS and UKCS, Statoil said.

Negotiations to unitize the field will begin shortly, according to Statoil, and a final investment decision is planned for late 2016 with production start-up in 2020. Concept selection for the Alfa Sentral project was passed in September 2015. 

“Statoil has set ambitious goals for future activity, production and value creation. This transaction demonstrates the potential on both the UK and Norwegian side of the Continental Shelf. The acquisition of this Alfa Sentral license increases the resource base and strengthens our efforts to further develop the Sleipner area towards 2030," Mette Halvorsen Ottøy, senior vice president for the operations south cluster in Development & Production Norway (DPN) said.

The Sleipner area includes the Sleipner East and Sleipner West gas and condensate fields.

Sleipner's produces about 300,000 boe/d, 36 MMcum/d and 14,000 cu m/day of condensate.  The area has produced 1.8 billion boe.

According to Statoil, Sleipner has been injected and stored more than 10 million tons of CO2 into the Utsira reservoir.  The amount is more than the total Norwegian fleet emits in two years.