Equinor announces record fast-track development of Visund Nord IOR project
STAVANGER -- On Sept. 2, the Visund Nord IOR (improved oil recovery) project came onstream, two months ahead of schedule. The project has further been delivered with no serious HSE incidents and well below budget.
“It took 21 months from the licenSe partners chose the concept until production started. This is a new fast-track record for Equinor,” said Torger Rød, senior V.P. for project development, Equinor.
Visund Nord IOR is a subsea development with two new wells in a new subsea template, which is tied back to an existing template on Visund. The oil is piped via the existing template to the Visund platform.
The project adds 13.3 MMbbl of oil to Visund field, 6% more than originally estimated. When the investment decision was made the costs were estimated at NOK 1.5 billion.
During the execution phase they were reduced to NOK 1.3 billion. “We are delivering well within the downward adjusted budget. The project has a competitive break-even price and will be profitable even with an oil price well below the current level,” said Project Director Tone Kristin Børslid.
Visund Nord IOR is a fast-track development focusing on simplification, standardization and continous improvement throughout the project phase:
“We are utilizing the existing infrastructure effectively as we are routing the oil via the Visund C template which is located 70 m away. The new template is a copy of this template. We have achieved synergies with other projects and we have even had good weather during the installations, ” she says.
She further underlines that they have never compromised on safety, which is confirmed by the HSE statistics.
TechnipFMC, who also delivered Visund C, has been responsible for everything on the seabed through the EPCI contract, implying that the company has been in charge of engineering, procurement, construction and installation. The two wells were drilled by Odfjell Drilling’s Deepsea Atlantic drilling rig.
The project has now been handed over to the operations unit, adding 13.3 MMbbl of oil that will be produced via a field that will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year:
“Contributing strongly to the Visund field production, Visund Nord IOR is an example of the type of projects that will be more common on the Norwegian continental shelf in the future: Smaller developments tied back to existing infrastructure. This will allow us to develop new discoveries at a lower cost, ensuring both longer field life and jobs on existing fields,” says Gunnar Nakken, senior V.P. for operations west, Equinor.
The Visund license partners are: Equinor Energy A/S (operator) 53.2%, Petoro A/S 30%, ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS 9.1% and Repsol Norge A/S 7.7%.
