Oil Equivalents News

Norway's preliminary production figures for November 2019 rose in November from the previous month, beating official forecast by 13.2%, said the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD).The average daily production stood at 2,016,000 barrels of oil, NGL and condensate in November, which is an increase of 235,000 barrels per day compared to October.Total gas sales were 10.0 billion Sm3 (GSm3), which is an increase of 0.6 GSm3 from the previous month.Average daily liquids production in November was: 1 711 000 barrels of oil, 277 000 barrels of NGL and 28 000 barrels of condensate.Oil production in November is 13.2 percent higher than the NPD's forecast…

Aker BP finds up to 153 million barrels of oil equivalents in North SeaAker BP has discovered an oil and gas reservoir while drilling near its Alvheim field in the North Sea.Known as Froskelaar (Frog's Leg) Main, the reservoir is estimated to hold between 45 million and 153 million barrels of oil equivalents, and may straddle Norway's maritime border with Britain."The drilling operation will continue, and a comprehensive data collection program will be performed to determine the size and quality of the discovery," Aker BP said in a statement.When reserves are found to stretch across the British-Norwegian offshore border, the two nations…

Aker BP, a partner in Norway's giant Johan Sverdrup oilfield, expects a fast ramp-up of production when the initial development phase ends in late 2019, its chief executive said on Thursday."I think it will be done in a few months, because the production per well is so high," Karl Johnny Hersvik told Reuters on the sidelines of an energy conference.Johan Sverdrup Phase 1 will have capacity to produce 440,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day (boed), while the second phase, starting production in 2022, is expected to further boost output to 660,000 boed.Sweden's Lundin Petroleum, another partn

Norwegian oil firm Okea is looking at four options to develop its North Sea North Sea Grevling oil discovery, which in turn could impact on the company's valuation in a deal with Thai investor Bangchak Corporation PCL (BCP), it said on Tuesday.BCP has agreed to invest 939 million Norwegian crowns ($112.25 million) in Okea to partly finance the company's 4.5 billion crowns acquisition of Royal Dutch Shell's stakes in the Draugen and Gjoea fields.Okea, which plans to list on the Oslo stock market in the next 12 months, said the deal between BCP and Okea's majority owner, private equity firm Seacrest Capital, values the Norwegian oil firm at 860 million Norwegian crowns.The valuation could fall, however, to 778 million crowns, or rise to 940 million, depending on whether or not the company is

Norway's independent oil firm Aker BP has agreed to buy stakes in 11 production licenses off Norway from French Total for a cash consideration of $205 million, the company said on Tuesday.The portfolio includes four discoveries with net recoverable resources of 83 million barrels oil equivalents based on estimates from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), it added."With this transaction, we get access to new tie-back opportunities in the Alvheim and Skarv areas, we strengthen our resource base in the NOAKA area, and we increase our interest in exploration acreage near the Ula field," Ake

The chief executive officer of Woodside Petroleum Ltd said on Tuesday that Australia's biggest independent oil and natural gas company will soon decide whether to continue to invest in Sempra Energy's Port Arthur liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project in Texas. "We've got to make some decisions pretty soon about our continued pursuit (of Port Arthur) with Sempra," said Coleman, noting that Woodside has been paying part of the project's development costs. "What we've been doing is just paying our way (with Port Arthur), and whether that is going to give us an adequate return, I would say today that is very challenged," Coleman said.

Oil firms are expected to drill 40-50 exploration wells off Norway this year compared to 36 wells drilled the previous year, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said on Thursday.The Norwegian continental shelf still held an estimated 4 billion cubic meters (25.2 billion barrels) of oil equivalents in undiscovered petroleum resources, with two-thirds located in the Arctic Barents Sea, it added.Half of estimated undiscovered resources in the Barents Sea, however, are located north of the areas opened for petroleum activities, and it's unclear when oil firms can get access to them.(Reporting by N

Norway must identify potential offshore oil and gas reserves near its northern maritime border with Russia to better protect its economic interest in the remote Arctic region, energy minister Terje Soeviknes said on Wednesday. The two countries agreed in 2010 to split previously disputed areas of the Barents Sea between them, allowing each to exploit resources hidden beneath the seabed. An increase in drilling activity on the Russian side of the border should lead Norway to push its own agenda, the minister said. "We need to start the discussion about what to do in the far north. We see a development on the Russian side of the border, where they are drilling and likely will find oil," Soeviknes told an energy conference in Sandefjord.

DONG Energy said it has reached a settlement with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Technip over who bears responsibility for construction errors concerning an offshore platform for the idled Hejre field. The settlement clears a major hurdle for the Danish company's plans to divest its oil and gas unit to focus on its growing business of developing offshore wind farms. DONG said in a statement that the agreement will reduce the 2.5 billion Danish crowns ($367 million) of provisions it made in relation to the Hejre field ahead of its listing, which was one of the largest in the world last year. It will also have a positive impact of around 900 million crowns on operating profit in DONG's Discontinued Operations…

Sweden's Lundin Petroleum has found additional oil and gas near its Alta discovery in the Norwegian Arctic, the firm and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said on Tuesday.   "The total gross resource estimate for the Neiden discovery is between 25 and 60 million barrels of oil equivalents," Lundin Petroleum said in a statement.   Lundin is the operator of the well and has a 40-percent stake. Its partners are Japan's Idemitsu and DEA, the oil firm controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, who have stakes of 30 percent, respectively. (Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)

Norwegian oil firm Det norske said it expected to reach full production at its Alvheim FPSO (floating storage, offloading and producing unit) overnight after a leak, stopped production earlier on Thursday. There was no discharge into the sea as a result of the incident, it added. "We are in full control and expect to reach full production at some time during the night," a Det norske spokesman told Reuters. Full production at the Alvheim FPSO is 90,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day (boepd), he said.

Aker Solutions will deliver a concept study on a new processing platform for future phases of the Statoil-operated Johan Sverdrup North Sea field, Norway's largest oil find in three decades. The study includes design solutions for a tie-in of the platform and future satellites to the field center that is being developed in the project's first phase. The work will be carried out by Aker Solutions in Oslo and Stavanger and will be delivered in the summer. "Johan Sverdrup is of major importance to Norway's oil industry and we're very pleased to expand our involvement through work on future phases," said Valborg Lundegaard, head of engineering at Aker Solutions. The study is being carried out under the framework engineering agreement awarded to Aker Solutions for Johan Sverdrup in 2013.

Norwegian oil major Statoil plans to develop its Arctic Johan Castberg oilfield after having cut costs by half, with a decision on investments in 2017, its chief executive said on Tuesday. Worried by high costs of operating in the remote Arctic Barents Sea, the Norwegian oil major last year delayed a final investment decision for Castberg, one of the world's northernmost oil finds. "The investment estimate is almost halved from around 100 billion crowns ($11.29 billion) to between 50 and 60 billion crowns," Chief Executive Eldar Saetre told an industry conference on Tuesday.

Norwegian oil major Statoil  has awarded Samsung Heavy industries an $888 million contract for two platform decks on the giant Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea, it said on Tuesday. The contract includes fabrication of decks for both the process and riser platforms for the Sverdrup field, a discovery with up to 3 billion barrels of oil equivalents that will cost as much as $28 billion to develop fully. "They (Samsung Heavy Industries) have provided a competitive bid in a tough international competition," Margareth Oevrum, executive vice president for Technology, projects and drilling at Statoil, said in a statement. Other competitors for the platform deck contracts included Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding, trade weekly Upstream reported in May.

Development of field could cost up to $32.5 bln; cost estimate higher than analyst forecasts. Sverdrup scheduled to start up in late 2019. Statoil's giant Johan Sverdrup oil field could cost as much as $32.5 billion, the company said in its first full estimate of the price tag to develop Norway's most expensive ever industrial project. Discovered in 2010, Sverdup is the biggest North Sea find in decades, reinvigorating Norway's oil sector where production has been declining for more than a decade. At maximum, its production would equal nearly half of Norway's current oil output. The hefty cost topped what analysts had expected, leading them to slightly downgrade the value of the project.

Norway's Statoil has found more gas offshore Tanzania, increasing its total for an eventual investment decision on a liquefaction plant with Britain's BG Group, which operates neighboring exploration blocks, it said on Tuesday. Statoil found another 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas in its block, taking its total volume in-place to 21 trillion cubic feet, or about 3.8 billion barrels of oil equivalents. BG has also found about 15 trillion cubic feet of gross resources in nearby blocks. "This discovery has proven the gas play extends into the western part of block 2, which opens additional prospects," Statoil said in a statement. Although Statoil and its partner ExxonMobil have released few detail on the project…

Norwegian firm DNO expects its first shipment of oil from Kurdistan to be sold on the international market by the end of the year and said it was committed to its operations in the region despite the recent flare-up in violence. The firm could until recently only sell oil on the local Iraqi market, at lower prices than it would have got on the international oil market, due to a long constitutional fight between the region and Baghdad over independent oil sales. That changed earlier this month when the Kurdish Regional Government allowed oil firms to seek out international buyers. Oil revenue is a lifeline for the KRG, whose peshmerga fighters are fighting Islamic State militants.

Maersk Drilling has taken delivery of its second ultra harsh environment jack-up, XLE-2, from the Keppel FELS shipyard in Singapore on time. The rig will start its mobilisation to the Norwegian North Sea in approximately two weeks, where it will commence a five year contract with Det norske oljeselskap ASA (Det norske) The rig, which will be named at a ceremony in Norway in October, is the second in a series of four newbuild ultra harsh environment jack-up rigs to enter Maersk Drilling’s rig fleet in 2014-16. The four jack-up rigs represent a total investment of USD 2.6bn. The first three jack-up rigs, including XLE-2, will be delivered from the Keppel FELS shipyard in 2014-2015…

Under increasing pressure from competitors & the authorities, the Russian gas major is stepping up exploration & drilling in Arctic waters. A total of four wells were drilled and 3000 square km of 3D seismic mapping was conducted in the years 2011-2012 resulting in an increase in offshore reserves with more than 200 million tons of oil equivalents. The exploration was conducted in the waters surrounding the Yamal Peninsula, the Tazov Bay, as well as in the west Kamchatka and Sakhalin parts of the Okhotsk Sea, the 'Barents Observer' reports, citing a Gazprom press release.

Norwegian oil firm Det norske has lifted the resource estimate for the Ivar Aaasen field in the North Sea after signing an agreement to combine several adjunct licenses and good drilling results, it said on Monday. The firm said the combined estimated gross proven and probable reserves were now 210 million barrels of oil equivalents (mmboe), up 35 percent compared to the end-2013 estimate. Meanwhile, investments for the field's development were unchanged at 27.4 billion Norwegian crowns ($4.45 billion), it added. The field was still expected to start up production in the fourth quarter of 2016. Det norske is the operator of Ivar Aasen with a stake of 34.8 percent. Its partners include Statoil, Lundin Petroleum, OMV, Bayerngas, Wintershall, a unit of chemicals giant BASF and VNG.

Maersk Drilling receives two-year term extension for newbuild jack-up rig 'XL Enhanced 2'. Det Norske Oljeselskap ASA (Det norske) has on behalf of the partners in the Ivar Aasen project, exercised its contractual right to extend the contract for the newbuild ultra harsh environment jack-up, XL Enhanced 2, by two years. Consequently, the duration of the firm contract is now five years. The estimated value of the two-year contract extension is approximately USD 280 million, bringing the total estimated contract value to approximately USD 700 million. Det norske has options to extend the contract up to a total of seven years. The rig is currently under construction at the Keppel FELS shipyard in Singapore.

Statoil  ASA has together with partners in the Shah Deniz consortium in Azerbaijan  made a final investment decision for the Stage 2 development of the Shah Deniz gas field, in the Caspian Sea, offshore Azerbaijan. Statoil also enters an agreement to divest a 10% share of its 25.5% holdings in Shah Deniz and the South Caucasus Pipeline. The BP operated Shah Deniz consortium  announces the final investment decision for the Stage 2 development of the Shah Deniz gas field, in the Caspian Sea, offshore Azerbaijan. This decision triggers plans to expand the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCPX) through Azerbaijan and Georgia, to construct the Trans Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP) across Turkey and to construct the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) across Greece, Albania and into Italy.

Statoil and the partners in the Johan Sverdrup field have decided on a concept for the first development phase. The partners have agreed on a field center consisting of four installations and power from shore. The partners have decided on power from shore for the Johan Sverdrup field in the first phase, which will reduce total CO2 emissions from the Utsira High area by 60-70%. “This is historic. We have not made a concept selection for a field this size since the 1980s,” says Arne Sigve Nylund, executive vice president for development and production in Norway.