Tune South Starts Production

StatoilHydro started production from the Tune South satellite well on Saturday 18 July. The satellite is tied back to the Oseberg field centre via the Tune subsea template.

"Output from Tune South is expected to be 1.4 million standard cubic metres of gas per day," said Torstein Hole, senior vice president of the operations west business cluster in StatoilHydro.

"In its first year of production, Tune South will account for 10% of the gas exported from the Oseberg field centre. This will be a key contribution in maintaining the positive production development at Oseberg."

Tune South is developed as a satellite well tied back to the Tune subsea template, 10 kilometres south-west of the Oseberg field centre in the North Sea.

"Tune South utilises free capacity in the existing infrastructure of the Oseberg area. That makes maximum use of the resources in the area," said Hole.

During 20 years of production, the Oseberg area has provided much more oil and gas than was anticipated when the development plans for the field were submitted.

The field's reserves have been more than doubled, from one billion barrels to 2.4 billion barrels of oil. The development of satellite fields such as Tune has been key to this progress.

The Tune, Oseberg western flank, Oseberg South J-structure, Gamma Main Statfjord and Oseberg Delta satellites are contributing more than 170 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2009.

In March StatoilHydro proved even more oil and gas in the Oseberg area's Katla well. This prospect will probably also be developed and tied back to the existing subsea infrastructure in the Oseberg area.

The licensees are StatoilHydro (operator) with 50%, Petoro 40% and Total E&P Norge 10%.