Scarabeo 5 Cleared for Well Intervention on Snorre

The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has granted Statoil consent to use the mobile drilling facility Scarabeo 5 for well intervention in well 34/7-A-10 H on the Snorre field.

Spanning blocks 34/4 and 34/7 in the Tampen area of the Norwegian North Sea, about 150 kilometers west of Floro, this field has been producing oil and gas since August 1992.

Field is redeveloped with two floating integrated installations Snorre A and B, and a subsea template tied back to Snorre A. Production on Snorre started in 1992. The Snorre B platform came on stream in June 2001.

Activity is planed to start in September and last for 22 days.

Snorre 2040 Project

In October 2013, Statoil and its licence partners recommended building a new drilling and processing platform on the Snorre field to extract maximum remaining reserves.

However, improved oil recovery (IOR) with a platform development has proved to be very economically demanding.

Reportedly, Snorre 2040 project as a subsea development could reduce costs by up to 40 percent. The concept includes construction of six subsea templates with a total of 24 well slots.

The final investment decision for maximising one of the fields with the largest remaining oil resources on the Norwegian Continental Shelf is scheduled for 4Q 2017.