Equinor pushes Johan Castberg production start to 2025, says completion in ‘final phase’
Dec. 10, 2024
Equinor expects to produce from Johan Castberg field in January-February 2025 now that Johan Castberg floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel is anchored and hooked up in the field in the Barents Sea.
The FPSO sailed away from Klosterfjorden on the Norwegian west coast in August. And while operations have been delayed by bad weather, Equinor said in a release Dec. 10, the project is now in the final phase of completion towards start-up (OGJ Online, Aug. 23, 2024). The company’s previous start-up estimate was fourth-quarter 2024.
At present, 14 wells have been drilled on the field and 12 are ready for production, sufficient to bring the field to the plateau production rate of 220,000 b/d, the company said.
Estimated recoverable volumes in Johan Castberg are 450-650 million bbl of oil. In addition, Equinor has made new discoveries that will be future tie-backs to Johan Castberg.
Equinor is operator with 50% interest. Partners are Vår Energi (30%) and Petoro AS (20%).
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
