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 NORWAY
North West Europe
There are four important regions in Norway. Like the UK,
Norway’s first licensing round was held in 1964 and gradual opening of
the shelf through the release of a limited number of blocks in each
round has maintained activity.
 Since
the 2nd Round in 1969 the state has been heavily involved. Statoil, the
national oil company, was formed in 1972, and has taken at least a 40%
interest in every block award, although after 1984 more than half of
each interest was retrospectively allocated to a State Direct Financial
Interest (SDFI) department of the government.
In 2001, after the partial privatisation of Statoil,
responsibility for managing the SDFI was transferred to a state body
called Petor. As in the UK there is a mix of large and small companies.
Over 60 oil and gas fields have been developed in Norway but around 100
undeveloped discoveries remain. The northern North Sea is the most
important region although activity is spreading north to the Norwegian
Sea as the North Sea depletes.
The Central North Sea: The Central North Sea is
Norway’s oldest producing area. Oil was discovered in 1969 in the
Ekofisk field, which remains by far the biggest field in the area.
Production from Ekofisk commenced in 1971 and by end 2003 it had
delivered over 2 Bn Bbls and 123 Bcm of gas.
 Oil from Ekofisk was loaded into tankers until 1975 when
the Norpipe pipeline to Teesside in the UK was completed. A dry gas
pipeline to Emden in Germany came into operation in 1977. Ekofisk is
still a substantial producer. It has seen several enhancements,
especially the commencement of water injection in 1987. After suffering
subsidence it had to be jacked up 6m in 1987, including the installation
of a concrete wall. Due to continued subsidence a new platform, Ekofisk
II, was put onstream in 1998. Ironically the subsidence is acting to
increase recovery and the field is likely to continue to produce for
many more years.
There are 14 other fields in the area, although 8 of the
smallest have already been abandoned. The next largest producer is
Valhall, which came onstream in 1981. Output from the central North Sea
is just beginning to decline. Production from the Central North Sea was
surpassed by the northern North Sea in 1983.
The Northern North Sea: The first oil to be
discovered in Norway was in the Balder field in the northern North Sea
in 1967 and the bulk of Norway’s oil (61%) and gas (75%) comes from this
region south of the 62nd parallel and north of the 59th.
As in the UK the Northern North Sea is a mature region
with giant oil fields in decline. There mostly remain only small
undeveloped or undiscovered fields, perhaps commercially viable through
satellite wells linked to existing infrastructure. There are four major
oil fields and one major gas field located in the area plus around 30
other sizeable fields, including 9 already abandoned.
Statfjord, which extends into UK waters, has produced
over 3.5 Bn Bbls in Norway since 1979 from 3 concrete gravity structures
although the field is declining rapidly from its peak production of
664,000 Bbls per day in 1992. Adjacent to Statfjord, Gullfaks has
produced around 1.95 Bn Bbls. It reached its peak in 1994 at 538,0000
Bbls per day. To the southeast of Gullfaks, Oseberg located on the
Bergen High, has also produced nearly 2 Bn Bbls since 1986 and it too is
declining, from a peak of 500,000 Bbls per day in 1994. However, its gas
output is rising as gas, injected from the Troll field to improve
recovery since 1991, is recovered.
Snorre, onstream in 1992 and on trend with Statfjord, is
also a major oil field, producing through a tension leg platform and
subsea production system into Statfjord’s spare facilities. The Troll
gas field came onstream in 1996 and is by far Norway’s biggest. Located
on the Bergen high, east of Oseberg and just 50 km from the coast, it
produces 30% of Norway’s gasr. The field also has a laterally extensive
shallow oil reservoir with excellent properties and is the highest oil
producer in the region although is probably near its peak.
The giant Troll platform, resting on the seabed at 330 m
depth, was probably the last major platform to be constructed in the
North Sea and is the largest man-made structure ever built.
The Norwegian Sea: The Norwegian Sea is a large
tract of water off the north-westerly facing Norwegian coastline. It has
an inhospitable environment with high waves and strong sea currents and
exploitation of oil and gas has significant technological hurdles.
There are a series of NNE-SSW trending rift basins, the
main ones being the More and Voring basins. On the eastern flank of
these basins, on an area known as the Halten Bank in water depths of
between 250 m and 400 m, a number of fields have begun producing.
Shell’s Draugen oil and gas field was the first to come
onstream in 1993. It was developed with the world’s first concrete
monotower but is down from its peak of 217,000 bbls per day in 2001.
Statoil’s Heidrun field came onstream in 1995, developed with a TLP and
a concrete hull. Heidrun is down from 232,000 bbls per day in 1997.
Statoil’s Norne field came onstream in 1997 and is the
most northerly of the discoveries, producing into a large FPSO down from
a peak in 2001 of 198,000 Bbls per day. Norsk Hydro’s Njord field,
developed with a semi-submersible, also came onstream in 1998. It
produces at a rate of around 25,000 Bbls per day down from 68,000 Bbls
per day in 2000.
In 1999, oil from Statoil’s huge Asgard complex of fields
(Midgard, Smorbukk and Smorbukk South) began to flow into the world’s
largest FPSO. This complex of fields is the biggest producer in the
Norwegian Sea. It is Norway’s 3rd largest oil and 3rd largest gas
producer. The smaller Mikkel field came onstream in 2003.
Some large gas discoveries have also been located in deep
waters, most notably Norsk Hydro’s Ormen Lange gas field in 850 to
1,100m of water. Production start-up of the Ormen Lange field, which is
the largest gas field under development on the Norwegian continental
shelf, is planned for 2007. The development will be a subsea tie back to
a shore terminal. It will initially comprise two 8-slot production
templates approximately 3.8 km apart. Each production template will
produce gas through dual 20" manifold headers connected to two 30"
pipelines that will transport the gas 100 km to the shore terminal. Peak
output is expected to be around 14.5 Bcm per year, from 2009.
Although large companies continue to explore the
Norwegian Sea, most activity is still restricted to the shallower
shelves because gas predominates over oil, the environmental conditions
make drilling more expensive than other deepwater areas, and the
Norwegian shelf already holds a substantial number of undeveloped
discoveries at shallower water depths.
The Barents Sea: The final Norwegian offshore area
is the Barents Sea, which lies entirely within the Arctic Circle. The
Sea is owned jointly by Norway and Russia although the border between
the two countries has been the subject of continual disagreement.
In Norway the region overlies a number of sedimentary
areas. From southwest to northeast these are the Tromso, Hammerfest,
Nordkap and Varanger basins, which were subjected to large amounts of
regional uplift in the mid-Tertiary so that the relatively shallow
source rocks that have been identified were formerly deeply buried and
generated gas. Much of any early-generated oil may have escaped during
the uplift event.
Around 70 wells have been drilled in the Norwegian sector
of which 20 have been small discoveries, mostly gas and condensate. The
first discovery, Askeladd, was made with the fourth well in 1981 in the
Hammerfest basin, near to the coast.
Most of the discoveries are located here. Three
discoveries were announced in 2000, after a six-year period in which no
drilling occurred. ENI’s Goliat field is believed to contain around 50
mm Bbls of oil. The largest field is Statoil’s Snohvit (with around 150
mm Bbls of condensate and NGLs) discovered in 1984. Statoil is
developing this field. It towed a barge-mounted LNG processing plant
from Spain’s Dragados yard in Cadiz to the Melkøya site near Hammerfest
in the summer of 2005. Snohvit is the first offshore project in the
Barents Sea and the first LNG scheme in Europe.
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