Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has approved the installation of a new template at the North Sea Visund field as part of Statoil’s improved oil recovery project.

Visund is an oil and gas field in the northern part of the North Sea, approximately 22 kilometers northeast of the Gullfaks field and about 140 kilometers west of the Sognefjord outlet.

The field was built with a semi submersible integrated drilling, processing and housing platform, and came into production in 1999. The now approved project allows for the connection of four new wells to the Visund platform.

The project has an estimated investment of approximately NOK 1.45 billion ($186 million).

TechnipFMC has been awarded engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract which covers the provision of subsea equipment including template structure, manifold and two subsea trees including wellheads and modifications of control systems to the Visund Nord improved oil recovery project. In addition, the contract has been extended to cover installation of the template structure and manifold as well as delivery and installation of flowline spool and umbilical.

The licensees of the Visund field are Statoil (53.2 percent), Petoro (30 percent), ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS (9.1 percent) and Total E & P Norge AS (7.7 percent).

Recoverable resources are estimated at about 11.5 million barrels of oil equivalents. Production start is scheduled for the third quarter of 2018.