A contract worth some NOK 550 million for drilling production wells on the Skinfaks and Rimfaks fields in the North Sea has been awarded by Statoil to Transocean.
Due to be performed by the Transocean Leader semi-submersible, the work embraces at least three wells and is expected to take about 225 days.
In addition, the rig will be used for roughly 130 days to carry out jobs on Statoil’s nearby Gullfaks development. All these fields lie in the Tampen area.
A total of eight production wells are planned on Skinfaks, which was proven in 2002 and comprises several small reservoirs, and on Rimfaks.
The latter has been on stream since 2000 through a tie-in to the Gullfaks A platform. Further development of Rimfaks will improve recovery from this discovery.
Scheduled to come on stream in November 2006, the present project involves a tie-back to Gullfaks C via existing infrastructure.
The plan for development and operation (PDO) of Rimfaks and Skinfaks was submitted to the Norwegian authorities on 8 December 2004.
The Transocean contract is conditional on acceptance by the partners and on approval of the PDO by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. A decision from the latter is expected in February/March.