Statoil has started production from the Visund North oil and gas field in the North Sea. Visund North is the sixth project of the 12 ‘fast track’ Statoil projects that has started production.
“Completion of the first production well as well as a production shutdown at the Visund A platform gave us some challenges, but in spite of this we are starting production only 3–4 weeks after the scheduled start-up established two years ago”, says Hogne Pedersen, Statoil Visund North field development head.
The Visund North and Visund South field developments have shared the same project organisation, which enabled efficient implementation of experiences from Visund South – the first development in Statoil’s fast track portfolio. Pedersen also emphasised the good cooperation within the Visund license with the authorities, which enabled efficient and timely decision processes and allowed the project to meet the development objectives.
Visund North has been developed by a standard, four-well subsea template. The oil is transported in a new pipeline to the Visund A platform for processing via a pipeline manifold and a new subsea safety integrity valve under the platform. The total recoverable reserves are estimated at 29M barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and the total investment for the field development is EUR 0.4B.
