WATCHING THE WORLD CIVILIZED HANDOVER OF HEIDRUN FIELD

May 22, 1995
With David Knott from London Approaching by boat the Heidrun tension leg platform (TLP) topsides, moored in a fjord off Stavanger for commissioning, you see the traditional yellow sign with black lettering giving field and operator details. The top half of the sign, made from steel plate, reads "6507/7 Heidrun." The bottom half, made from what looks like stretched canvas, reads "Conoco." The reason for the temporary lower sign is that when oil production from Heidrun begins in mid-August,

Approaching by boat the Heidrun tension leg platform (TLP) topsides, moored in a fjord off Stavanger for commissioning, you see the traditional yellow sign with black lettering giving field and operator details.

The top half of the sign, made from steel plate, reads "6507/7 Heidrun." The bottom half, made from what looks like stretched canvas, reads "Conoco."

The reason for the temporary lower sign is that when oil production from Heidrun begins in mid-August, operatorship will transfer from Conoco Norway Inc. to Den norske stats oljeselskap AS.

Like parents explaining after a divorce who gets custody of the children, both companies are maintaining a positive outlook in public. As with a custody battle, one of the partners is likely to be less happy than the other.

Heidrun is thought to hold 750 million bbl of oil and 1.6 tcf of gas, assets well worth fighting over. Conoco is developing the field using the world's first concrete TLP and is justifiably proud of its innovations (OGJ, Aug. 15, 1994, p. 62).

CAPTAINS' TABLE VIEW

After a naming ceremony May 10, officials from government and current and future Heidrun operators sat behind a long table to face the press.

Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's minister for industry and energy, praised the development innovations of Conoco and said Heidrun will be one of Norway's biggest oil producers, along with Ekofisk, beyond 2000.

Constantine Nicandros, president and chief executive officer of Conoco, said it has been a tremendous pleasure working so closely with Statoil.

"If you asked me if it is satisfying to hand over operatorship, the answer would be 'no,'" Nicandros admitted, "but conditions of the license state we have to do it."

Harald Norvik, president of Statoil, said he was happy to take over operatorship of Heidrun: "So the balance of opinion at this table is that it is a good thing."

PROCESS DECK VIEW

One complication was that the requirements of Statoil as production operator had to be accommodated at every stage of development. Statoil staff worked in the development team from the start 4 years ago.

Statoil decreed, for example, that the topsides must have space to fit another module at a later date to allow housing of processing equipment for a satellite field development.

David Chenier, Conoco's project and operations coordinator on Heidrun, said the production equipment design was based on Statoil's specifications for last year's East Statfjord satellite field development.

"Conoco would have done some things differently," Chenier said, "but we always had Statoil's plans to consider."

Not everyone was quite so discreet as Nicandros and Chenier, however. For a tour of the topsides before the naming ceremony, the press wore overalls provided by Conoco, with a large Conoco logo across the back.

I asked my guide if the logo badges on the overalls were removable like the platform signs so Statoil's logo could be put in their place. "Don't mention that name down here," said my guide. I think he was joking.

Copyright 1995 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.