Page 12 - EurOil Week 26 2019
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EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil
Conoco lodges Tor-2 plans
NORWAY
CONOCOPHILLIPS and a group of partners have led plans to re-develop the mature Tor oil eld o shore Norway, signaling con dence in the North Sea’s potential at a time when many oil majors are scaling back their presence in the region.
Tor lies in waters 70 metres deep in the Greater Eko sk area of the southern section of the North Sea. Production rst kicked o at the site in 1978 but ceased in 2015, a er the eld’s infrastructure reached the end of its working life.
Plans for the so-called Toro-2 project involve the construction of two new subsea templates connecting to Conoco’s Eko sk complex, located 13km south-east. Production should be restored in late 2020, with development costs estimated at NOK6bn ($705mn).
Conoco has a 30.7% operating stake in the eld, while its partners include France’s Total (48.2%), Var Energi – a joint venture between Italy’s Eni and Norwegian private equity investor HitecVision (10.8%) – and Norwegian oil com- panies Equinor (6.6%) and Petoro (3.7%).
“Having produced the Tor eld for 37 years, we are now proud to be able to rebuild the eld and with that gain a total lifetime of more than
60 years production from Tor,” Conoco’s regional director for Norway and North Africa, Trond- Erik Johansen, said in a statement.
At its shutdown, only 20% of Tor’s resources in place had been exploited, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD). Conoco has said before it is looking to recover an extra 60-70 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) at the eld’s reservoirs, which lie 3,200 metres below the seabed.
e US major has been weighing up options for developing Tor for some time. It settled on a plan to tie the eld back to Eko sk last year, and awarded an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract to London-based TechnipFMC for Tor-2 in April.
Several international oil companies (IOCs) such as US rms ExxonMobil and Chevron have divested their operations in Norway in recent years because of high costs and declining pro- duction. Reports have emerged several times in recent years that Conoco is considering a simi- lar move, but the company is yet to con rm any withdrawal plans. Along with its other partners at Tor, it operates three producing elds in the Greater Eko sk area.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 26 04•July•2019
