The oil is now flowing from template number three on the Vigdis East structure in the North Sea, adding 16 million barrels of oil to the Vigdis production.

"This is an important improved oil recovery project and one of many good initiatives that may help achieve our production targets," says Bente Aleksandersen, vice president for Snorre production.

The Vigdis field is part of licence PL089, which belongs to the Snorre business unit. On stream from 1997 Vigdis sends some 60 000 barrels of crude oil each day to the Snorre A platform for processing.

Under the Vigdis Extension Phase 2 programme, which was given the green light in 2006, the Vigdis East field is further developed. In Phase 1, two satellite structures were installed.

The last template has four well slots that may be used both for production and injection.

"The plan was initially to drill two new wells at Vigdis East, but due to the potential in the area we increased the flexibility by adding two extra well slots for future use. Well number three is already being drilled," says Elin Loktu Rosnes, the head of the Snorre satellites.

The template and pipeline were installed in the summer of 2006. The drilling of the first two wells was recently completed by "Borgland Dolphin". The two wells add some 11 000 barrels of oil per day to the production.

"Borgland Dolphin" is already drilling a new well from the two idle well slots. This is an injector for the northern part of the Borg field due to be completed this summer.

The development of the 089 licence has been gradual. As new discoveries have been made, the seabed infrastructure has been extended for further development of the fields. The recoverable reserves from the field are estimated at 360 million barrels of oil, twice as much as initially estimated.

Through various IOR (improved oil recovery) initiatives StatoilHydro aims to reach a recovery factor of 61 percent.

So far Vigdis, incl. Vigdis East and Borg North-West, have produced oil worth more than NOK 60 billion. The field will remain on stream until 2020 according to plans.

Licensees in PL089: StatoilHydro (41.5 prosent), Petoro (30), ExxonMobil (10.5), Idemitsu (9.6), Total (5.6) and RWE Dea (2.,80).– Dette er et viktig prosjekt for økt oljeutvinning og er et av mange gode bidrag for å nå produksjonsmålene vi har satt, sier Bente Aleksandersen, produksjonsdirektør for Snorre.

Tags: StatoilHydro, Vigdis