Equinor Breathes New Life into Ageing North Sea Field

Norway’s Equinor has approved a plan to extend the production lifespan of the Statfjord area in the North Sea until 2040, the company announced in a statement on January 9.

The Statfjord oil and gas field has been in production since 1979. Output peaked at around 715,000 boe/day in 1993 but by 2018 had fallen to roughly 56,500 boe/day.

However, Equinor believes Statfjord and its satellite fields still have “considerable” production potential, based on extensive underground mapping.

The company and its partners Var Energi, Spirit Energy, Petoro, Idemitsu Petroleum and Wintershall Dea have cleared a plan to delay the decommissioning of the Statfjord A platform by five years until 2027. The service lives of the Statfjord B and C facilities will also be extended beyond 2035.

Around 100 new wells will be drilled between now and 2030 in order to keep Statfjord’s output at the current level beyond 2025. Doing so will require substantial investment and the upgrading of three platforms, Equinor said.

“We have a responsibility to society and our owners for realising the full value potential from our producing fields on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS),” Equinor’s vice president for offshore Norway, Arne Sigve Nylund, commented. “Statfjord is a world-class oil and gas field that has supplied the world with huge amounts of energy.”