Statoil has brought on stream its two latest “Fast-track” fields, Fram H-North and Svalin C, in the North Sea.
Fram H-North, north of Fram West in the Troll area, and Svalin C, in block 25/11 southwest of the Grane platform, are the eighth and ninth fast-track development projects for Statoil.
Image: The Svalin C subsea template. Image from Statoil.
Preliminary estimates show that Fram H-North contains about 10MMboe, while Svalin C is estimated to have just over 30MMboe.
Fram H-North is a standard subsea template that can accommodate four wells. It is connected by about 5km of pipeline and umbilicals to the existing subsea template on Fram West A2. Svalin C consists of a subsea facility with two wells, about 6km southwest of the Grane platform, into which it is tied.
Statoil says its fast-track development projects are increasing its and its partners’ oil and gas production through a combination of standardized subsea development solutions and utilization of infrastructure in a manner which helps extend the lifetime of existing fields.
The Plan for Development and Operation (PDO) for Svalin C was submitted in June 2012 and approved by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in November 2012.
In line with the Ministry’s guidelines, Fram H-North was exempt from having to submit a PDO. The investment decision for Fram H-North was made by the partners in the summer of 2012.
"Statoil has set ambitious goals as regards development time, but projects may offer up surprises along the way, and Fram H-North and Svalin C were no exception," the firm said.
"For Fram H-North, the drilling and well activities turned out to be more challenging than expected, while Svalin C ran into challenges in connection with deliveries of the control system for the subsea template, which resulted in a delay in production start-up."
"We have succeeded in delivering two new high-quality projects within budget. We set lofty goals as regards implementation time for the fast-track development projects, and we were able to reduce the time by about 40% on average. Svalin C and Fram H-North contribute towards our goal," says Anders Opedal, senior vice president for projects in Statoil.
"We are on the right track with our mindset regarding standardised technical solutions, early maturing of design basis to avoid late changes and last, but not least, use of the same teams from project to project, where people know each other well and share the same philosophy."
Svalin C is operated by Statoil, with 57% equity, with partners Petoro (30%), and ExxonMobil (13%).
Fram H North is operated by Statoil (49.2%), with partners Idemitsu (28.8%), GDF Suez (10.8%), and Petoro (11.2%).
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