Statoil on track with Mariner field development project
Statoil has started the build-up of its Aberdeen operating organisation and reported on September 3 at SPE Offshore Europe 2013 that the company and its partners are on track with the Mariner field development project, the Company said Tuesday in a press release.
The company and its partners took the final investment decision in December 2012 and the UK government's Department of Energy and Climate Change announced their approval of the field development plan in February 2013.
"This is the largest new offshore field development in the UK in over a decade. It has been 30 years in the making, and now we are on track developing the field and preparing for 30 years of production," says Lars Christian Bacher, Statoil's executive vice president for Development and Production International.
Statoil expects to start production from Mariner in 2017. The average production is estimated at around 55,000 barrels of oil per day over the plateau period from 2017 to 2020.
Expected recoverable oil volumes are estimated to more than 250 million barrels.
Statoil has started the build-up of its local organisation in Aberdeen and is planning to have a new operations centre in place by 2016.
Statoil has utilised its extensive heavy oil experience from Norway, Brazil and Canada in its efforts to find a viable development solution for the Mariner heavy oil field.
The field will be developed with a production, drilling and quarters platform based on a steel jacket with 50 active well slots, and a floating storage unit of 850,000 barrels capacity. In addition a jack-up drilling rig will be used to assist the drilling for the first four to five years.
The UK and global supplier industry will play a central role in the development of the Mariner project. The majority of facility contracts have been awarded, in addition to the contracts for drilling from the fixed platform and the jack-up rig.