Equinor to place new North Sea gas discovery on production this year
Equinor AS made a gas discovery by Gina Krog field in the North Sea about 30 km northwest of the Sleipner area in 120 m of water. While the discovery is small, it is commercially viable due to nearby infrastructure, and plans are to place the discovery into production during this year’s fourth quarter, the operator said Nov. 6.
Well 15/6-B-20, drilled by the Noble Lloyd Noble rig is expected to make use of existing infrastructure by the Gina Krog platform which is tied in to Sleipner A processing, drilling, and living quarter platform.
"The discovery will help extend the lifetime and strengthen the profitability of Gina Krog and is important for the entire Sleipner area. It will quickly bring new gas to Europe with good profitability and low CO2 emissions from production,” said Camilla Salthe, senior vice-president for field life extension at Equinor. “Gina Krog is already electrified and has spare capacity. This shows how important it is to explore in mature areas on the Norwegian continental shelf,” Salthe continued.
Gina Krog was discovered in 1978 and the plan for development and operation was approved in 2013. The field produces oil and gas from sandstone of Middle Jurassic age in the Hugin formation at 3,300-3,900 m depth. Recoverable volumes are estimated at 5-16 MMboe.
Equinor is operator at Gina Krog (58.7%) with partners KUFPEC Norway AS (30%) and PGNiG Upstream Norway AS (11.3%).
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).