Half of Norway’s oil and gas remains beneath the seabed, but the time between big finds in open areas is steadily lengthening. Tailored solutions are now being dropped for many small projects to speed up their development and make them profitable.
Ståle Tungesvik, Statoil’s senior vice president for reserves and business development on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS).
“The future in these waters looks very different from what’s been the case earlier,” observes Ståle Tungesvik, Statoil’s senior vice president for reserves and business development on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS).
Statfjord, Gullfaks, Oseberg and Troll – the first 40 years of Norway’s oil history have been the age of the giants. Three out of four producing fields today are large or medium-sized.
The future will be written by “marginal” fields, ones which have been hard to get to pay.
Three out of four discoveries on the NCS since 2007 have been classified as small. And 90% of development candidates are in line for simple solutions, with one subsea template and a few wells. This contrasts sharply with today’s activities.
“We’re used to looking for optimum solutions to get the maximum out of the big fields” says Tungesvik. “Our attention has concentrated on volume rather than time. But we can’t make small, marginal fields profitable with an approach like that.”
Statoil has promised the market to keep output from the NCS stable. Since output is declining from many of today’s producing fields, this commitment means that Statoil must boost production by about a third.
“We’re ready to meet the challenge, and will show that we accept responsibility for maximising the potential of the NCS,” affirms Tungesvik.