Oil and gas company Neptune Energy has started a drilling campaign on the Fenja field offshore Norway, with the spud of the first well carried out by the West Phoenix drilling rig.
Fenja is Neptune’s first operated development project on the Norwegian Shelf and is estimated to contain 97 million boe. Fenja will deliver around 40 kboepd at plateau.
Neptune’s Director of Projects and Engineering in Norway, Erik Oppedal, said: “Sunday’s drilling start-up represents an important milestone in the project. The aim of these first geo-pilots is to gain a better understanding of the reservoir and to optimize the location of the production wells.
"As our first operated development in the Norwegian North Sea, Fenja is an exciting project for Neptune and underlines the importance of the region to our geographically-diverse business.”
Located in the Norwegian Sea 120 kilometers north of Kristiansund and at a water depth of 320 meters, the subsea field will be developed as a tie-back to the Njord-A platform. At 36 kilometers, it will be the world’s longest electrically trace-heated pipe-in-pipe subsea development, Neptune said.
The development plan combines two subsea templates with six wells, including three oil producers, two water injectors and one gas injector. The gas injector will be converted to a gas producer towards the end of field life.
"The Fenja drilling campaign has been modified to address delays resulting from the impact of COVID-19 with the licence partners opting to carry out drilling in three phases over the next two years. This also provides greater flexibility to respond to subsurface insights gained from the geo-pilots, and the current challenging market conditions," Neptune said.
The drilling program for 2020 includes two top holes and two geopilots, with an expected duration of 85 days. The drilling program for 2020 will be carried out by the semi-submersible drilling rig West Phoenix, operated by Seadrill.
Production start-up at Fenja is expected by Q4 2021. Fenja licence partners are Neptune Energy (Operator and 30%), Vår Energi, (45%), Suncor (17.5%) and DNO (7.5%)