Visund North development offshore Norway moves forward
Visund North partners will invest 3.1 billion kroner to develop an oil accumulation on Block 34/8 in production license 120 offshore Norway in the North Sea.
Operator Statoil expects production to start in fall 2013 and recover about 29 million boe over the life of the field.
The development calls for installation in summer 2012 of an FMC standard seabed template with two wells in about 335 m of water.
Oil from Visund North will be transported 10 km to the Visund A semisubmersible drilling and production platform.
The acreage was previously produced through a template that was shut down in 2006. An exploration well east of the shut-in template in 2009 proved additional reserves in the area and led to the new development.
Statoil has already awarded all development contracts, except for the marine installations and platform modifications. The awarding of these contracts is planned by yearend.
Earlier this year, plans to develop Visund South (Pan and Pandora discoveries) were completed (OGJ Online, June 6, 2010). Visund South will tie back 10 km to the Gullfaks C platform.
License holders of PL120 inside Visund are Statoil 53.2%, Petoro AS 30%, Total E&P Norge AS 7.7%, and ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS 9.1%.
License holders on PL120 outside Visund are Statoil 59.06%, Petoro 16.94%, Total 11%, and ConocoPhillips 13%.
Guntis Moritis | Production Editor
Guntis Moritis has covered production and drilling technology for the Oil & Gas Journal since January 1988. Previous to that, he worked for several major oil companies in the areas of drilling, production, and reservoir engineering. Moritis has a degree in petroleum engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.
