Shipping, Oil & Gas

Petroleum and energy minister Tord Lien this week opened the Valemon gas and condensate field in the North Sea. Expected recoverable reserves from the field are 192 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Statoil is cutting back, and the company will reduce jobs by up to 20 percent within its technical department. This means that up to 2400 employees, mainly engineers, may lose their jobs. 

Around 15,000 jobs have disappeared in the Norwegian oil related industry since 2013, due to lower oil prices and reduced activity in the industry, according to DNB Markets.

Norwegian energy provider Statoil has announced that it has made an oil discovery in its Miocene Yeti prospect located in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM).

“The Yeti discovery expands the proven sub-salt Miocene play further south and west of the Big Foot field,” says Jez Averty, Statoil’s senior vice president, exploration for North America. “We are analysing data to determine the size of the discovery in order to consider future appraisal options.”

The Yeti discovery was made in Walker Ridge (WR) block 160, which is located approximately 15 kilometres (9 miles) south of the Big Foot field, and 11 kilometres (7 miles) from the Cascade field. All of the blocks making up Yeti were accessed by the current owners in recent years. 

Yeti was drilled with the Maersk Developer drilling rig, a sixth generation semi-submersible. Statoil reports that its drilling efficiency with Yeti was among the best of any well drilled in Walker Ridge, achieving a rate of approximately 123 metres (400 feet) per day.

The rig has moved on and is currently drilling Statoil’s Thorvald prospect in the Mississippi Canyon block 814.

Statoil is the operator (50%) of Yeti, and its partners are Anadarko (37.5%) and Samson (12.5%).

(Press release)