Norway's Statoil said Friday it and its partners had submitted formal development plans to the Norwegian authorities for the North Sea Svalin oil and gas field, and that its aim was to produce 100,000 barrels/day of oil equivalent by 2014.
Svalin, in Production Licence 169 in Block 25/11 in the North Sea, is one of Statoil's fast track developments in which it speeds up the normally lengthy process of going online by tying resources to existing facilities.
The Svalin field is about six kilometers south-west of the existing Grane platform at a water depth of 125 meters and the new development will be tied back to the Grane platform.
Norwegian state-controlled Statoil said Friday its recoverable reserves were estimated at about 75 million barrels of oil equivalent and that there were two structures -- Svalin C and Svalin M -- containing similar quantities.
Statoil is the operator of the field with a 57% stake and the other partners are fellow Norwegian state-controlled group Petoro AS (30%) with ExxonMobil holding the balance.
Statoil said in its statement that Svalin M will be produced by a well drilled from the Grane platform, while Svalin C will be a subsea development with a six-kilometer-long flowline to the Grane platform. The hydrocarbons will utilize shared processing and export facilities.
Stavanger-based Statoil said the gas compression facility at the Grane platform would be modified to handle gas from Svalin.
Oil from the Svalin development is set to be transported, with production from the Grane field, through the existing pipeline for storage and shipment from the oil terminal at Sture.
Svalin M was discovered in 2008 and its start-up is scheduled for the end of 2013, while Svalin C was discovered in 1992 and its start-up is scheduled for summer 2014.
Statoil said the Svalin development would use available process capacity and mitigate the decline of oil and gas processed on the Grane platform.
Oil services group Aker Subsea AS has been awarded the contract for the subsea production system and the pipeline and marine operations are to be performed by Subsea 7.
Statoil said Svalin was the eighth in Statoil's portfolio of fast-track developments.
The company's criteria for them are that a standard development solution can be used and processed by the existing infrastructure, so the fast-track developments deliver significant production.
