Statoil and its partners in the Aasta Hansteen gas field have submitted the plan for development and operation (PDO) of the field to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
The Aasta Hansteen field will be run from Harstad, Statoil’s new Operations North organisation. The supply base will be located in Sandnessjøen and the helicopter base in Brønnøysund. All three towns are located in Northern Norway.
The planned field development includes the world’s largest SPAR platform, which will be the first such installation on the Norwegian continental shelf. SPAR is a floating installation consisting of a large-diameter, single vertical column moored to the seabed. The installation features conventional topsides with processing facilities.
A 480-kilometer long gas pipeline called Polarled will lead the gas from the field to Nyhamna processing plant in Møre and Romsdal. The 36-inch pipeline will be located 1300 meters below sea level at the deepest. No other oil/gas pipeline of this dimension has ever been laid this deep before.
The Aasta Hansteen field (earlier called Luva field) was discovered in 1997 and has an estimated recoverable volume of 47 billion standard cubic meters of gas. The field is situated 1300 meters below sea level, 300 kilometers offshore Bodø.
Statoil owns 75 percent of the license while Austrian energy firm OMV holds 15 percent and ConocoPhilips has 10 percent.
Expected start-up of drilling is the first quarter of 2016. The first gas is planned to be produced in the third quarter of 2017, Statoil writes in a press release.
The gas field is named after Norwegian painter, writer and early feminist Aasta Hansteen (1824-1908).
