Trio Team up for Push at Greater Ekofisk Area
Friday 4 November 2016
ConocoPhillips, Statoil and Total have joined forces to collectively develop three oil and gas discoveries in the Greater Ekofisk area of the Norwegian North Sea.
It is understood that licence partners in the ConocoPhillips-operated Tor 2 and Tommeliten Alpha projects and Norwegian giant Statoil’s King Lear and Julius prospects have put together a team to study the possibility of a joint project under the name Greater Ekofisk Area.
France’s Total, which holds significant interests in Tor 2 and Tommeliten Alpha, has joined the two operators in study work on the potential project, sources added.
If these efforts succeed then a new development could emerge involving the exploitation of several hundred million barrels of oil equivalent in the Greater Ekofisk Area.
The companies involved are reluctant to provide details about the work at present.
“Together with our licence partners we are studying all possibilities for good and economically viable development solutions for Tor 2 and Tommeliten A.
“At present, We have nothing more to disclose about this,” a ConocoPhillips spokesman stated
Statoil said it is still examining development solutions for the 125 million barrels of oil equivalent King Lear and Julius gas and condensate discoveries.
“It is not normal for us to discuss matters involving other licences and operatorships,” a Statoil spokesman said.
However, Norwegian consultancy Rystad Energy staetd that a new joint development in the Ekofisk area could be significant.
“Our base case estimate of recoverable resources is 300 million boe for these discoveries and the redevelopment (of Tor).
“A possible development concept is unmanned platforms with or without subsea wells,” said Rystad’s Stavanger office head Tore Guldbardsoy.
He added that there could be synergies with the Oseberg Vestflanken 2 project, which could have the same development concept and also the same key partners as in King Lear-Julius, Tor 2 and Tommeliten Alpha, namely Statoil, Total and ConocoPhillips.
With this development concept there might be a need for a new platform with gas processing capability.
“Available gas capacity is expected to be one of the key issues that need to be resolved among the partners,” Guldbrandsoy said.
The King Lear and Julius discoveries are located in one of the most mature parts of the Norwegian continental shelf — just 20 kilometres north of Ekofisk, the first commercial Norwegian discovery made 45 years ago.
It is expected that the King Lear recoverable volumes will stay within the previously communicated range of 70 million to 200 million boe.
Although the Tor field produced for 37 years through its original platform, which was finally shut in early this year, only about 154 million barrels of crude out of the original in-place volume of 753.5 million barrels was exploited — a recovery factor of just 20.5%, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.
The field has also produced about 10.9 billion cubic metres of associated gas, about a third of its in-place volumes.
The Tommeliten Alpha oil and gas field, discovered in 1977, holds an estimated 150 million boe.