Statoil submits Vigdis North-East development plan

April 12, 2011
Statoil submitted a 4.2 billion kroner plan to the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy for the development and operation for Vigdis North-East in the Tampen area of the North Sea.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Apr. 12
-- Statoil submitted a 4.2 billion kroner plan to the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy for the development and operation for Vigdis North-East in the Tampen area of the North Sea.

The company expects to start production from the field in December 2012.

This is the second fast-track development plan that Statoil has submitted to the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy this year. Earlier in the year, Statoil submitted a plan for the development of Visund South (Pan-Pandora).

Vigdis North-East is planned as a subsea development, 1.6 km from the existing subsea installation on the Vigdis field.

The development will have a standard template with three producing wells and one water-injection well. A new pipeline will transport produced oil and gas to the existing Vigdis B template and then existing infrastructure will carry the production 7 km to the Snorre A tension-leg platform.

Statoil expects to recover about 33 million boe from a fluvial sandstone reservoir in the Early Jurassic Statfjord formation. The company drilled the discovery well 34/7-34 to 2,670-m TVD subsea in March 2009 (OGJ Online, Mar. 28, 2009).

The company has let most of the major contracts for the development including the template and wellheads to FMC Technologies Inc. (OGJ, Jan. 10, 2011, Newsletter), marine installation to Subsea 7 SA and Technip, and workover systems to Aker Solutions.

Operator Statoil holds a 41.5% interest in PL 089. Partners are Petoro AS 30%, ExxonMobil Exploration & Production Norway AS 10.5%, Idemitsu Petroleum Norge AS 9.6%, Total E&P Norge AS 5.6%, and RWE Dea Norge AS 2.8%.