Norway's Ministry of Petroleum and Energy approved Statoil's development and operation plan for the fast-track Stjerne and Vigdis North-East fields offshore Norway.
Statoil will develop Vigdis North-East with a four-slot seabed template in about 920 ft of water tied back with a new flowline to the existing Vigdis B template, which ties back 7 km to the Snorre A platform.
Stjerne, previously called Katla, is in 310 ft of water and also will have a four-slot subsea template with two producing wells and two water-injection wells for maintaining reservoir pressure.
The oil from Stjerne will go to Oseberg South platform and the gas will be used for pressure support in Oseberg Omega North.
Statoil said with these approvals all four of its initial fast-track projects launched in January 2010 have been approved. Hyme and Visund South received approvals in June.
Vigdis North-East, discovered in 2009, is in the Tampen area of the Norwegian North Sea. Statoil expects to invest 4.2 billion kroner for the developing the field, which contains 25 million boe of recoverable resources.
The company expects to place the field on stream in 2012-13.
Stjerne, discovered in 2009, lies 13 km southwest of Oseberg South in the Norwegian Sea. Statoil expects to invest 5.4 billion kroner for developing the field, which contains 45 million boe of recoverable resource, and place it on stream in 2012.
Interest owners in Vigdis North-East are operator Statoil 41.5%, 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%.
Operator Statoil holds 49.3% interest in Stjerne. The remaining interest is held by Petoro 33.6%, Total 10%, ExxonMobil 4.7%, and ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS 2.4%.
