The first piece of the Johan Sverdrup development has now been completed and installed on the field in the North Sea.
The pre-drilling template is 32 metres long and 10 metres high.
It was Heerema Marine Contractors’ crane vessel “Thialf” that completed the installation of the 280-tonne pre-drilling template on the Johan Sverdrup field.
Heerema Marine Contractors were responsible for design, building and installing the pre-drilling template.
The 32-metre-long, 10-metre-high pre-drilling template is one of the smallest building blocks of the Johan Sverdrup development but plays a key role in the project.
The pre-drilling template contains eight well slots that allow production wells to be pre-drilled before the drilling platform is installed in 2018 and production starts at Johan Sverdrup in late 2019.
Pre-drilling allows the production capacity to be utilised as efficiently as possible when Johan Sverdrup has come on stream.
Pre-drilling and the pre-drilling template thus help capture maximum value for the partners and the whole society over the next 50 years.
The «Deepsea Atlantic» drilling rig will start pre-drilling on the Johan Sverdrup field through the pre-drilling template from March 2016.
The Johan Sverdrup partnership consists of Statoil, Lundin Norway, Petoro, Det norske oljeselskap and Maersk Oil. The partnership has recommended Statoil as the operator of all field phases.