The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate has granted its consent for start-up of the Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea. The field is expected to produce oil for the next 40 years. Operator Equinor plans to start sometime this autumn for the first phase of the field development. Construction phase two is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Johan Sverdrup is the third largest oil field on the Norwegian shelf, measured in reserves, with only Statfjord and Ekofisk, also in the North Sea, being larger. The field is located 155 kilometres west of Karmøy and 40 kilometres south of the Grane field.
The Johan Sverdrup Unit (JSU) was established by a decision in the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in July 2015 and the green light for start-up of the field is being granted to the licensees in the Johan Sverdrup Unit (JSU).
According to Equinor, investment costs for development of the first stage of construction are expected to be NOK 83 billion.
Estimates show that the overall recoverable reserves are about 430 million standard cubic meters of oil equivalents.
Around 95% of this is oil, 3% is dry gas and the rest is NGL (Natural Gas Liquids). The field has a production capacity of 105,000 cubic metres of oil per day.
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The Johan Sverdrup development is being implemented in two stages of construction. The first construction stage regards a field centre with four installations connected by bridges. The four installations are a living quarters platform with auxiliary systems, a process platform, a drilling platform and a riser platform.
Pipelines for transporting oil and gas, the power from shore unit and three subsea templates for water injection are also connected to the riser platform.
The second construction stage comprises of an expansion of the field centre with a new process platform, five subsea templates linked to the field centre and development of the outer areas of the reservoir.
Additional development of central areas is also planned through more wells from the drilling platform.
Electric power for normal operation of the Johan Sverdrup field will be supplied from the land-based grid. Gas and stabilised oil will be transported via a gas pipeline to Statpipe and an oil pipeline to Mongstad, north of Bergen.
