LNG

Leading European pipeline natural gas and LNG supplier Equinor of Norway said record high production levels continued in the third quarter as Europe received 11 percent more gas from the Norwegian Continental Shelf and profits rose from trading gas and power at higher prices.

Equinor, the Norwegian oil and gas company, has initiated a safe shutdown of the Gudrun, Oseberg South and Oseberg East offshore fields in the North Sea because of a strike and prolonged action could lead to a reduction in pipeline natural gas exports to Europe.

The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has updated its estimate of projected European natural gas sales in 2022 to about 8 percent higher than last year and set to be bolstered by the restarting Hammerfest LNG export plant in Northern Norway and with the volumes helping to offset declining Russian gas sales.

Equinor, the Norwegian oil and gas company whose Hammerfest LNG plant is scheduled to resume production in mid-May, has made a new natural gas and oil discovery in the North Sea.

State-owned Equinor is the operator of production licence 293 B close to the Troll and Fram area where the find was made.

“Based on preliminary estimates the size of the discovery is between 4 and 8 million standard cubic metres of recoverable oil equivalent, or 25-50 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent,” said the company.

Temporarily called Kveikje, this is the sixth discovery in this area since the third quarter of 2019.

“Up to more than 300 million barrels of oil equivalent were proven in the five former discoveries,” said Equinor.

The discovery comes as the Hammerfest LNG plant is scheduled to come back on stream following repairs from a fire in September 2020 and will provide more than 6 billion cubic metres of gas per year from the Barents Sea to European customers.

“We are very pleased to make another discovery in this area that we regard to be commercial,” said Lill H. Brusdal, Equinor’s vice president for the Troll area’s exploration and production.

Tie-in

“As we did with the other discoveries in this area, we will consider tying this discovery to the Troll B or C platform,” added Brusdal.

“By utilising the existing infrastructure, we will be able to recover these volumes at a low cost and with low emissions,” she stated.

“There were several drilling targets in the exploration well. After Kveikje was discovered, drilling continued to the next target in the upper part of the Cretaceous stratigraphic sequence,” said Equinor.

The well was drilled by “Deepsea Stavanger” and the latest plans are for Equinor to drill another exploration well in this area this year.

The licence owners are Equinor (51 percent), Norwegian firm DNO AS (29 percent), Japan’s Idemitsu (10 percent) and London-listed Longboat Energy (10 percent).

Equinor’s exploration strategy is to explore for volumes in mature areas, where discoveries can be tied into existing infrastructure to maximise the value of investments.

“We will drill between 20 and 30 exploration wells each year moving forward,” said the company.

“Around 80 percent of the exploration wells will be drilled in familiar areas near existing infrastructure, but certain new areas and ideas will be tested.,” said the Stavanger-based company. 

Norwegian energy and LNG producer Equinor has been awarded 26 new production licences by Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in the latest award in predefined areas (APA) with 12 licences as operator and 14 licences as partner.

“Exploration is essential to secure continued value creation on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS),” said Jez Averty, Equinor’s senior vice president for subsurface in Exploration and Production.

“The APA rounds are very important to us and we are pleased about the award of new production licences,” added Averty.

Equinor’s Hammerfest LNG plant on Melkoya island in northern Norway is currently closed after a fire occurred on September 28 2020.

The facility, which supplies European LNG terminals, is expected to re-open in the current first quarter of 2022 after repairs have been completed.

Equinor said that the 26 production licences are divided as follows: 12 in the North Sea, 10 in the Norwegian Sea and four in the Barents Sea, from where Hammerfest LNG receives its feed gas for processing.

“Equinor’s ambition is to transform the NCS from an oil and gas province to a low-carbon energy province,” the company explained.

“In this transformation, oil and gas play a crucial role, both in delivering energy that is critical to society, but also through the expertise, technology and capital needed to realise the transformation,” added Equinor.

Averty said he believed in the NCS and that there is still substantial value to find and develop.

“A good example is our latest discovery, Toppand, which was awarded in the 2011 APA,” he added.

“This discovery shows the potential for value creation on the NCS, even in mature areas, through use of new information and modern exploration technology,” he stated.

“At least 80 per cent of our exploration resources and investments will be concentrated around existing infrastructure - so-called near-field or infrastructure-led exploration,” declared the Equinor executive.

During 2022, Equinor plans to take part in around 25 exploration wells, mainly near existing infrastructure.

Most of the wells will be drilled in the North Sea, some in the Norwegian Sea and a few in the Barents Sea.

Nov 26 (LNGJ) - Norwegian energy company Equinor said it would invest 10 billion Norwegian crowns ($995M) to change the Oseberg field from primarily being an oil field to becoming a substantial natural gas producer with large remaining gas resources. “Oil production is in the tail phase, but 60 percent of the gas resources are still in the ground. When it comes to gas, Oseberg is also one of the major fields, with only Troll and Snøhvit having more remaining gas resources on the Norwegian Continental Shelf,” said Equinor.

   Oseberg is the third-largest oil producer ever on the NCS. “When Oseberg came on stream, it was expected to produce around one billion barrels of oil, but the total will be around 3.2 billion barrels of oil,” added Equinor. Equinor said an amended plan for development and operation (PDO) has been submitted to the Norwegian Minister pf Petroleum and Energy Marte Mjøs Persen.

April 29 (LNGJ) - French oil and gas company Total, which this week declared “force majeure” on the Mozambique LNG project over the security situation in the northern Cabo Delgado province, posted a 51 percent increase in first-quarter adjusted net operating income to $3.48 billion compared with $2.3Bln in the same three months of 2020. Total’s LNG sales rose 1 percent to 9.9 million tonnes versus 9.8MT in the prior-year quarter.

   “Despite hydrocarbon production for LNG in the first quarter of 2021, down 6 percent year-on-year, mainly due to the shutdown of the Snøhvit LNG plant (Norway) following a fire at the end of September 2020, LNG sales were stable in the first quarter,” said Total. The company added that its average realised LNG price in the quarter was $6.08 per million British thermal units, higher than the previous quarter’s $4.90 per MMBtu, though about 4 percent lower than the year-on-year price of $6.32 per MMBtu.

Norway, Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer and the third-largest exporter of natural gas in the world after Russia and Qatar, has announced its 25th licensing round on the Norwegian Continental Shelf for February 2021.

Equinor, the Norwegian oil and gas company, said the Hammerfest LNG export plant that suffered a fire last month will likely be closed until October 2021 for repairs, cutting more than 60 cargoes from the European market for the next year.

Equinor, the operator of the Hammerfest LNG export plant on Melkoya Island in Northern Norway, said the facility would remain shut until September 23 after a gas leak.

Emergency services were sent to the plant on September 13 after an alarm was sounded during preparations to restart the plant after maintenance.

Feed-gas for the single-Train Hammerfest liquefaction facility comes from the Snohvit gas field in the Barents Sea.

Hammerfest exported 4.72 million tonnes of LNG in 2019 compared with 5.17MT in the previous year.

Most of the volumes were delivered to European destinations like France, Spain, the Netherlands and Lithuania.

The Norwegian facility also exported small quantities last year to Asian nations such as China and India.

Hammerfest had been scheduled to restart on September 13 after a short shutdown due to an outage.

Equinor had given no previous reason for the original shutdown.

Europe’s only large-scale LNG plant has a capacity to process 18 million cubic metres of gas per day.

Most feed-gas for Hammerfest comes from a total of 20 wells in the Snohvit and Albatross fields.

This output is transported to land through a 143-kilometre pipeline

A previous scheduled maintenance saw Hammerfest reopen on June 18 after several weeks of shutdown.

Equinor has 37 percent of the Snohvit field and the LNG plant and the other partners include French major Total and Germany’s Wintershall Dea.