Equinor issued a letter of intent (LOI) to Odfjell Drilling and the Deepsea Aberdeen rig for 15 Breidablikk oil field wells in the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), northeast of Grane field in the North Sea.
The agreement includes options for drilling an additional nine wells before continuous optionality apply. Drilling is scheduled to start in the spring of 2022, and the campaign is estimated to last until the autumn of 2024.
At end September, the partners submitted a plan for development and operation (PDO) for Breidablikk. The field will be developed with four subsea templates, each with six slots. The templates will be tied into and controlled from the Grane platform. The plan calls for 23 production wells, and oil will be processed and exported via Grane to the Sture terminal in Hordaland county (OGJ Online, Sept. 28, 2020). Production from Grane will be monitored with advanced digital tools from Equinor's integrated operations center at Sandsli.
The estimated value of the fixed part of the agreement is $290 million. Additional costs include integrated services, maintenance, modifications, mobilization, and demobilization. The contract is estimated to create 200 man-years in Norway connected to the rig, and an additional 20-40 man-years related to support functions.
Estimated field recovery is around 200 million bbl with an investment of 18.6 billion kroner.
Equinor operates Breidablikk (previously Grand) in license 169 B2 with 47.5%. Partners are Petoro AS 30%, Vår Energi 10%, and ConocoPhilips Skandinavia AS 12.5%.
