2017 Was a Disappointing Year for Drillers in Norway’s Arctic Waters

/hope-wanes-for-elephant-oil-finds-in-no

  • Shell Gives North Sea Shot in Arm With Field Redevelopment - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-15/shell-gives-north-sea-operations-shot-in-arm-at-penguins-field

    Royal Dutch Shell Plc made one of its biggest commitments to the North Sea in 30 years, with plans to redevelop the Penguins oil and gas field.

    The Anglo-Dutch oil major will build a floating production, storage and offloading vessel — its first new manned installation in almost three decades — to take output from eight wells it plans to drill. Peak production will be the equivalent of 45,000 barrels a day, with a break-even price of less than $40 a barrel, Shell said on Monday.

    It is another example of how we are unlocking development opportunities, with lower costs, in support of Shell’s transformation into a world class investment case,” Andy Brown, Shell’s upstream director, said in a statement.

    Penguins, a joint venture between Shell and Exxon Mobil Corp., is already operational after first being developed in 2002. Oil from the field — about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of the Shetland Islands — will be transported by tanker to refineries, while the gas will be sent by a pipeline to the St. Fergus terminal in Scotland.

    #Penguins_Oil_Field


    Shell initiated a the Brent decommissioning project in 2006 due to depleting resources. Image courtesy of Shell UK.

    carte issue d’un article sur le démantèlement du champ #Brent
    https://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/brent-field-decommissioning-north-sea

    • Alors que la prospection en #mer_de_Barents a été très décevante.

      2017 Was a Disappointing Year for Drillers in Norway’s Arctic Waters - Bloomberg
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-11/hope-wanes-for-elephant-oil-finds-in-norway-s-arctic-waters

      After a disappointing year for drillers, Norwegian authorities are reviewing their hopes for the Nordic country’s hottest exploration area.

      In the part of the Barents Sea that’s currently open, you’ve sort of tried the elephants — the big opportunities,” Bente Nyland, the head of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, said in an interview. “You’re now down to the next generation in size.

      That means the industry regulator would be happy with any discovery of about 500 million barrels of oil, she said. That’s a far cry from the multibillion barrel deposits discovered in the North Sea, which have helped Norway become one of the world’s richest countries over the past decades.

      Apart from Statoil ASA’s #Snohvit gas field, no single discovery in the Barents has reached half a billion barrels. A record drilling campaign in the region last year yielded only one oil discovery with commercial potential. A particular disappointment was Statoil’s #Korpfjell well, the first to be drilled in the newly-opened Barents Sea South-East region abutting Russian waters. Estimated to have billion-barrel potential, the prospect proved to hold only unprofitable amounts of gas.