SOUTH GULLFAKS DECLARED COMMERCIAL

Norway's Den norske stats oljeselskap AS has declared commerciality for South Gullfaks oil field in the Norwegian North Sea. One idea for field development is to use extended reach wells drilled from Gullfaks A platform, which lies 10 km from the South Gullfaks reservoir, to allow early production. Drilling such a well would require Statoil to break its own extended reach drilling world record of 7 km, set early this year in Statfjord field (OGJ, Feb. 15, p. 31).

Oct. 4, 1993

Norway's Den norske stats oljeselskap AS has declared commerciality for South Gullfaks oil field in the Norwegian North Sea.

One idea for field development is to use extended reach wells drilled from Gullfaks A platform, which lies 10 km from the South Gullfaks reservoir, to allow early production. Drilling such a well would require Statoil to break its own extended reach drilling world record of 7 km, set early this year in Statfjord field (OGJ, Feb. 15, p. 31).

The most favored development concept calls for a wellhead platform in the field with a gas processing platform linked to the Gullfaks A installation.

South Gullfaks lies in North Sea Block 34/10a, where water depth is 150 m. Reserves are estimated at 125 million bbl of oil and 2.1 tcf of gas in the lower and middle Jurassic. Wood Mackenzie Consultants Ltd., Edinburgh, predicts start-up in 1998, with peak flow of 60,000 b/d of oil in 1999 and gas sales of 500 MMcfd in 2003.

South Gullfaks partners are operator Statoil 85%, Norsk Hydro AS 9%, and Saga Petroleum AS 6%.