VNG Selects Tie-Back to Njord

VNG Norge, operator of the Pil & Bue oil and gas fields in the Norwegian Sea, said November 4 that it and fellow PL586 partners have decided on a subsea installation tied back to the Statoil-operated Njord platform 32 km away as their preferred concept for their two fields.

It added: “Partners in PL586 are looking forward to good co-operation with the operator and partnership for the Njord license. In the coming months, the development solution will be matured further towards a formal decision on project continuation.” Two subsea templates and between 6 and 8 wells are envisaged.

VNG Norge has a 30% interest in PL586, partnered by UK-listed Faroe Petroleum 25% and Norway’s Point Resources 45%. VNG Norge is wholly-owned by Leipzig-based gas supplier VNG, itself majority-owned by Germany’s third largest power group EnBW.

Total resource estimate is 90-200mn barrels of oil equivalent. Of that, Pil recoverable resource estimates are 7.5-14.9mn m³ liquids and 3.7-5.9bn m³ gas, while Bue is 1.5-2.6mn m³ oil only.

Pil & Bue development concept (Graphic credit: VNG Norge)

Faroe said that the project still had to go through the front-end engineering design stage before a formal field development plan would be submitted. The Njord production facility is in Kvaerner's Stord facility in Norway undergoing extensive modifications in order to increase materially its operating life and accommodate a number of new satellite field tie-back developments including Pil and Bue. 

Mark Smedley