Statoil Plans to Get More Oil from Oseberg Øst with New Drilling Campaign

Statoil will increase the Oseberg Øst field recovery rate by means of a drilling campaign starting up in the summer of 2015.

Oseberg Øst platform

On Wednesday 2 July it was made public that Prosafe Offshore has been awarded a contract for the use of Safe Scandinavia in connection with this campaign.

Support vessel Safe Scandinavia is currently a flotel, but it will be modified to enable it to store and treat drilling fluid and cuttings as the drilling operations take place.

Transferring treatment capacity from Oseberg Øst to Safe Scandinavia will enable greater amounts of drilling fluid and cuttings to be stored. The support vessel will help make drilling operations more efficient, and enable longer wells to be drilled than is currently the case.

The drilling of new wells is an important measure towards boosting recovery rates and doubling the lifetime of the Oseberg Øst field.

“We are expecting to increase the recovery rate on Oseberg Øst from around 20% to up to 30% when we drill the first planned wells. We also have the possibility of drilling more wells and further increasing the recovery rate towards 40%, which is almost double the rate in the plan for development and operation. As operator we are determined to ensure the greatest possible recovery of profitable barrels, and are pleased that the license has taken this important decision,” says Kjetil Hove, senior vice president for operations in Statoil’s Development & Production Norway business area.

The contract is of three years’ duration with the option of extending the contract, by one year at a time, for four years. Safe Scandinavia will be modified by Westcon in Ølensvåg.

“We have worked intensively to achieve profitability in this project, which is time critical in terms of recovering remaining resources, and are satisfied at having come up with a good concept. Our solution also provides the possibility of developing the field in the longer term,” adds Hove.

Oseberg Øst is the smallest of the platforms in the Oseberg area. It is situated 25 kilometres northeast of the Oseberg field centre. Field development includes an integrated drilling, accommodation and production platform with equipment for first-phase processing. The field’s reservoirs are layered and there is limited communication between the layers, which makes recovery demanding compared with the other Oseberg fields.

Statoil has a 49.30% licence share in Oseberg Øst. The other partners are Petoro (33.6%), Total E&P Norge (14.70%) and ConocoPhillips Skandinavia (2.4%).