Statoil said Wednesday that is has submitted its development and operation plan for the for the Utgard discovery in the North Sea.
Norway-based Statoil said it and its partners submitted the Plan for Development and Operation and the Field Development Plan for the gas and condensate to Norwegian and UK authorities.
Recoverable reserves at the field are estimated at 56.4 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Statoil expects the project will call for about $420 million (NOK 3.5 billion) in capital expenditures for the project.
Utgard, formerly known as Alfa Sentral, and was discovered in 1982 about 13 miles from the Sleipner field.
Utgard straddles the UK-Norway median line, with the majority of the reserves located on the Norwegian side.
The discovery has been considered for development on several occasions in the past, Statoil said.
“I am very pleased that we now can realize a commercial development of Utgard. This clearly demonstrates the effects of the improvement work that has taken place in the oil and gas industry in recent years,” Statoil’s senior vice president for project development Torger Rød said.
The Utgard development will include two wells in a standard subsea concept, with one drilling target on each side of the median line.
All installations and infrastructure will be located in the Norwegian sector.
Statoil said the UK well will be drilled from the subsea template on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
The distance from the subsea template to the median line will be just over one mile.
Gas and condensate will be piped through a new pipeline to the Sleipner field for processing and further transportation to the market.
Statoil said the Utgard gas has a high CO2 content and will benefit from carbon cleaning and storage at Sleipner.
“Reuse of existing infrastructure is essential to the development of the Utgard discovery,” Statoil said.
The Utgard wells are scheduled to come on stream at the end of 2019.
In the plateau phase, the field will produce about 7,000 standard cubic meters per day of oil equivalent.
“Utgard provides new production which will be essential to further developing the Sleipner area, supporting the company’s ambitious targets for future activity and value creation,” Rød said.
