Thursday 15 June 2017

As many as 77 discoveries are being considered for development off Norway while additional "vast volumes" could also be brought online using new technology to boost recovery at existing fields and exploit tight oil and gas reservoirs, according to the country’s petroleum agency.

The finds, mostly in the North Sea but with the largest in the Barents Sea, are estimated to hold 4.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to the latest annual resource report released on Thursday by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD).

The report shows Norway’s oil and gas resource tally continues to climb even after nearly 50 years of production, with around 46.7 billion boe remaining to be produced - more than half of an overall estimate of 89.8 billion boe, of which 43.1 billion boe has already been delivered.

Undiscovered volumes, which currently stand at just over 18 billion boe, have increased further after a recent doubling of the tally for the Barents that will be included in next year’s NPD resource accounts.

Some 18.9 billion boe is classified as reserves that are being developed while 9.7 billion boe has been proven at discoveries and existing fields that is expected to be developed.

“Vast volumes of oil and gas have been discovered on the Norwegian shelf that are still waiting to be produced. We want companies with the ability and willingness to utilise new knowledge and advanced technology. This will yield profitable production for many decades in the future,” said the NPD’s director of development and operations, Ingrid Solvberg.

The NPD has identified technical potential to tap additional volumes of between 2 billion and 5.4 billion boe that could be exploited using advanced increased recovery measures.

“Furthermore, there are vast volumes of oil and gas in tight reservoirs that could be recovered using new technology,” it stated.

Solvberg said if more than 5.3 billion boe could be produced through increased recovery, this would be equivalent to the total production from the stalwart Statfjord field since its start-up in 1979.

Norway’s total resources, including undiscovered volumes, have increased by more than 40% since 1990, which she said was beyond the agency’s expectations.

Meanwhile, the agency expects 10 to 20 fields to cease production in the period to 2021, out of 80 producing fields at the start of this year, with decommissioning costs seen at a total of Nkr35.4 billion ($4.2 billion) including Nkr12 billion on physical removal of installations.