Vår Energi and partner Kistos Energy have taken final investment decision (FID) to develop Balder Phase V in the Norwegian North Sea.
The fast-track project is expected to develop 33 MMboe of 2P reserves from the Balder area through investment of about $690 million. The development will consist of six new infill wells through use of spare template slots on subsea infrastructure serving Balder field and the surrounding area.
Drilling will begin in first-half 2025, with the first wells expected onstream by end-2025.
Balder area, Norway
The Balder area comprises two main fields, Balder and Ringhorne Øst. Production began in 1999, through Balder field, which has been developed with subsea wells tied-back to the Balder production, storage and offloading vessel. The Ringhorne platform began production in 2003 and is connected to the Balder FPU which processes and stores oil ready for offload onto shuttle tankers.
The fields lie in the Central North Sea on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in a water depth of about 125 m and comprise a series of sandstone deposits of Jurassic, Paleocene, and Eocene age at a depth of about 1,700 m subsea.