Everything points towards increased oil reserves that can be produced from the satellite field Fram Vest, after a successful predrilling in which the wells were drilled longer than originally estimated. In addition the whole predrilling program was completed last Saturday, well before plan and at considerably lower costs than originally budgeted.
Petroleum technology manager Mari Skaug, who is the client for the Fram Vest drilling, is proud and delighted with the predrill results from the wells on the important satellite field. Fram Vest will come onstream in October and will be linked to the processing unit on Troll C.
Like the gas field Tune, which is a satellite of Oseberg, the oil field Fram Vest is an example of the the new generation of oil and gas fields on the Norwegian continental shelf, where the development of satellites increases recovery and extends the life of existing, older field installations. The predrilling on Fram Vest also showed promising prospects for a type of subsea technology in which Hydro has a leading role on the continental shelf.
Increased reserve base
In the original plan for development and operation (PDO) for Fram Vest, it was estimated that the predrilling would take 367 days using two rigs. The whole drilling program has instead been carried out in 316 days with one rig, "Deepsea Delta". The savings achieved through the reduction in time are not the only gain, as Skaug points out.
"It was presumed in the PDO that we would predrill up to four wells before production start in the autumn. As the predrilling has been so efficient, we have been able to drill five wells. One of these is a lateral well, which is quite unique for the predrilling stage. This may be the only predrilled lateral well in a satellite field in the world," she adds.
"In total, the wells on Fram Vest have been predrilled 5,660 meters longer than originally assumed in the PDO. All oil producers are longer, and we have an additional lateral well and an additional observation well, which will give us better understanding of the reservoir and more control during production.
"All these factors suggest that recovery from Fram Vest will be higher than calculated before we started the drilling campaign," Skaug concludes.
Great satisfaction
She agrees that there is great satisfaction in the Fram Vest project and among the licensees, and she salutes the teams that were involved in the successful drilling from the Petroleum Technology and Drilling units. "Drilling superintendent Tor Johan Skakstad has done a wonderful job," she adds.
"We've really got a lot out of this predrilling. It's been fun!"
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