Green light for Skogul

Consent for start-up of Skogul was granted to the licensees in production licence 460.

Skogul was proven in 2010 and the Plan for development and operation (PDO) was approved in early 2018.

Recoverable resources are estimated at 1.5 million standard cubic metres of oil (9.4 million bbls) in the PDO, making Skogul one of the smallest fields on the Norwegian shelf.

The field is developed with a subsea template tied-in to the Alvheim FPSO via the Vilje field.

Operator Aker BP plans start-up in March 2020, in accordance with the PDO. When the PDO was submitted, development costs were estimated at approx. NOK 1.5 billion.

“Skogul contributes to good resource exploitation in the Alvheim area. The project serves as an example that even small fields can create value for the licensees and the Norwegian society,” says Arvid Østhus, the NPD’s assistant director for development and operations in the North Sea.

The licensees for the Alvheim field received the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s IOR award in 2018 for use of newly developed technology, sharing of data and the ability to see and develop a larger area as one overall unit.

An exploration programme near the Alvheim field has resulted in new discoveries, several of which have been developed. Discoveries made outside the field area, such as Skogul, have also been tied-in to Alvheim.

This has contributed to the reserves in the Alvheim area being more than doubled compared to the estimates in the plan for development and operation approved in 2004.