Equinor Greenlights Next Gudrun Phase

Norway’s Equinor and its partners have taken a final investment decision (FID) on the second stage of development of the offshore Gudrun oil and gas field in the Norwegian North Sea.

The project, valued at kroner 2.4bn ($280mn), will involve the construction of a water injection plant in order to aid recovery, Equinor said in a July 16 statement announcing the decision. A new production well will also be drilled. These additions will extend the field’s life by three years until 2032, the company said.

“Water injection will improve recovery from the reservoir and utilise existing infrastructure on the field. This is a robust and good project,” Tom Elseth, Equinor’s project director at Gudrun, commented.

Gudrun lies in production licence 025 in the central part of the North Sea, some 55 km from Equinor’s Sleipner installations. It holds 184mn boe of oil and gas in high-pressure and high-temperature reservoirs. Production began in 2014 and takes place at a single fixed platform.

Equinor operates licence 025 with a 36% stake, and is joined by London-based Neptune Energy which has 25%, Austria’s OMV with 24% and Spain’s Repsol with 15%.

Stavanger-based service group Aibel has been handed an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract for the water injection plant, according to Equinor. The deal is worth kroner 500mn ($58.4mn) and work is slated to start immediately, with up to 160 personnel being employed onshore and offshore at the project’s peak.

"The accommodation on the Gudrun platform is small. To be able to carry out offshore modifications and complete the work by 2021, we must use the Rowan Stavanger rig while it is carrying out scheduled production drilling on the field,” Elseth added.