Equinor, Partners to Spend $346M to Boost Recovery Rates from North Sea Field

Norwegian oil firm Equinor has, with its partners, decided to invest around NOK 3 billion (USD345,8 million) to boost recovery from the Statfjord Øst offshore field by 23 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Statfjord Øst, sitting in the North Sea, offshore Norway, is tied back to the Statfjord C platform by pipelines. A total of four new wells will be drilled from existing subsea templates. The project also includes modifications on Statfjord C and a new pipeline for gas lift.

The license partners in Statfjord Øst are Equinor Energy AS (31.6875%), Petoro AS (30.0000%), Vår Energi AS (20.5500%), Spirit Energy Norway AS (11.5625%), Idemitsu Petroleum Norge AS (4.8000%), Wintershall Dea Norge AS (1.4000%).

Kjetil Hove, Equinor’s senior vice president for Field Life eXtension (FLX) said: "The decision to improve recovery on Statfjord Øst will add considerable value to society and owners and will create positive effects for suppliers. Our ambition is to maintain safe and profitable production and secure valuable activity from the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) for several decades.

“We will be a leading late-life operator on the NCS. In order to achieve this, we must work in new ways to reduce costs, thereby offering new opportunities for investments in late life fields ensuring profitable reservoir management. The Statfjord Øst decision is a good example of this,” says Hove.

Equinor said the decision enables an improvement of the recovery factor on Statfjord Øst and gives an important contribution to extending the life of the Statfjord C platform and the Statfjord Øst field towards 2040.

The original oil volume in place on Statfjord Øst was 415 million barrels of oil. The current recovery factor is 56 percent. As a result of this project, the expected recovery factor is increased to 62 percent.

Plans call for installation of a pipeline for gas lift, modifications on Statfjord C and drilling of new wells in 2022 - 2024. Production start is scheduled for 2024.

The Statfjord Øst development comprises subsea installations that include three templates. The field is located five kilometres north-east of Statfjord C. The field came on stream in 1994.

After several extensions of the Statfjord field life, the current goal is to maintain safe and profitable operation until 2040. Statfjord is part of FLX, which was established to meet the strategic opportunities and challenges of late-life fields in relation to Equinor’s competitiveness, the company said.