Equinor Starts Snefrid Nord Gasfield

Norwegian state producer Equinor has brought on stream the Snefrid Nord gas field, it said September 4, three days after first gas. It is the first discovery to be tied back to the Norwegian Sea's Aasta Hansteen field. It also sets a new water depth record on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS), at 1,300 metres.

Recoverable resources for Snefrid Nord are estimated at 4.4bn m³ and some condensate. This will extend plateau production from Aasta Hansteen by almost a year. At plateau Snefrid Nord will produce 4mn m³/day and it will produce for five or six years.

Aasta Hansteen came on stream in December 2018. Together with the Polarled pipeline the field opened a new region in the Norwegian Sea for gas export to Europe and this is the first discovery to be tied back to Aasta Hansteen and it was developed in parallel. Equinor said: "As the two projects have used several of the same suppliers, we have been able to combine campaigns and follow-up teams in Equinor and reuse technical solutions."

It cost around Nkr 1.2bn ($130mn) to develop Snefrid Nord, which was within the company's expectations, and it was also on stream early: originally it was to start production at the end of this year.

Snefrid Nord was sanctioned in 2017. The concept includes one well in a subsea template tied back to the Aasta Hansteen field by a pipeline and an umbilical. Operator Equinor has 51%, Germany's Wintershall Dea 24%, Austrian OMV 15% and US ConocoPhillips 10%.