Statoil Resumes Snohvit Drilling
Statoil said August 9 that the new Songa Enabler drillrig has begun drilling a new carbon dioxide (CO2) injection well on the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea. After that, it will drill a production well -- the first to be drilled on the Snohvit field since 2007 -- in order to maintain feed gas supplies for the LNG plant on Melkoya island near Hammerfest in north Norway.
Snohvit remains the world’s only LNG project that captures and stores CO2 from the well stream in a dedicated formation offshore; more than 4mn mt of CO2 have been sequestered there to date.
Songa Enabler started drilling offshore Norway July 29, having arrived from the shipyard in South Korea (Photo credit: Statoil)
The next big development step for Hammerfest LNG, said Statoil, is the development of its Askeladd field, which is part of the plan for development and operation of the Snohvit licence. Askeladd is due on stream in 2020/2021 and will ensure full utilisation of the 4.1mn metric ton/yr capacity Hammerfest LNG export plant.
Mark Smedley