The two existing business units will form an operational collaboration under unified management, with the Kvitebjørn land team integrated in the Troll Gas organisation in Bergen.
Sigurd Geir Amland, currently operations vice president for Troll Gas, will now also be responsible for Kvitebjørn. This field is due to start producing gas on 1 October 2004.
He says that a good integration job has been done in advance of the unification, together with the Kvitebjørn project team.
“I’m looking forward to the job of carrying the work forward in the operations phase. The first big challenge will be production drilling, which begins in August.
“As a reservoir with high pressure and temperature, getting Kvitebjørn’s wells ready could prove the most demanding job of its kind so far tackled by Statoil.”
The two fields will have separate dedicated technical and operational units up to 1 April next year, when these functions are also due to integrate.
This collaboration aims to achieve experience transfer and economies of scale, not least in deployment of operations personnel and the division of labour between land and offshore.
Gas from Kvitebjørn is due to be landed at the existing Kollsnes processing plant for Troll Gas near Bergen.