Snefrid Nord 'Decision Imminent'
Tuesday 6 June 2017
Statoil is reportedly set to make a final investment decision later this month on development of its Snefrid Nord discovery in the Norwegian Sea.
The state-controlled operator aims to exploit the gas discovery as a subsea tieback to the under-construction Aasta Hansteen spar platform due to be installed at the latter field in early 2018.
According to documents seen by Norwegian news site Petro.no, Statoil intends to sanction the satellite project by the end of June with a view to start-up a year after Aasta Hansteen gets under way in the fourth quarter of 2018.
At the same time, the operator will file a revised field development plan for Aasta Hansteen with the authorities to encompass Snefrid Nord, which lies 12 kilometres away from the main field.
It was earlier reported that Statoil was seeking to exploit estimated resources of between 31 million and 57 million barrels of oil equivalent at the find, made in 2015, under a fast-track scheme to take advantage of present low contractor prices, as well as benefit from drilling and facility synergies on Aasta Hansteen.
The Snefrid Nord production well will be drilled as part of the drilling campaign for Aasta Hansteen next year using semi-submersible Transocean Spitsbergen involving a total of seven or eight wells.
Statoil plans to bring online early flows from Snefrid Nord via a subsea connection to the Luva template to coincide with start-up of Aasta Hansteen.
The company stated in a letter to the Petroleum & Energy Ministry that this would improve the project economics and profitability of Aasta Hansteen, while Snefrid Nord will boost the resource base for the main field by 15% and increase throughput for the associated Polarled export pipeline.
Aasta Hansteen is being developed with the world’s largest spar platform - and the first such facility to be deployed off Norway - that is under construction at South Korean yard Hyundai Heavy Industries, with the project estimated to cost Nkr37 billion ($4.4 billion).
The massive 46,000-tonne hull of the giant platform sailed away earlier this year from the Ulsan yard and is now en route to the field location on heavy transport vessel Dockwise Vanguard.