Wintershall completes Nova project top hole drilling

Feb. 11, 2021
Wintershall Dea has progressed its Nova field project, having completed a low-emission top-hole drilling campaign 2 weeks ahead of schedule.

Wintershall Dea has progressed its Nova field project, having completed a low-emission top-hole drilling campaign 2 weeks ahead of schedule (OGJ Online, Oct. 22, 2020). The company will next move to drill three production wells and three water injection wells ahead of a planned production start in 2022.

Nova lies about 120 km northwest of Bergen and 17 km southwest of the Gjøa platform in the Norwegian North Sea in 370 m of water.

The recent campaign, carried out by the Seadrill-operated West Mira rig, involved drilling 3,400 m of top hole for the production and water injection wells on two different templates. Five of the six were drilled in one batch with repetitive operations.

Nova is being developed as a subsea tieback connecting two templates to the existing Neptune Energy-operated Gjøa platform. Gjøa will receive production fluids and provide injection water and lift gas to Nova field. Oil from Nova will be transported from Gjøa through the Troll Oil Pipeline II to Mongstad, and associated gas will be exported via the Far North Liquids and Associated Gas System (FLAGS) pipeline to St. Fergus, UK, supplying the European energy market.

Wintershall Dea is operator at Nova (45%), with partners Spirit Energy Norge AS (20%), Edison Norge AS (15%), Sval Energi AS (10%), and ONE-Dyas Norge AS (10%).