Oil and gas production began from Heidrun 10 years ago today, 18 October. This field was the first to be operated by Statoil in the Norwegian Sea.
Its development also led to the creation of one of Norway’s most important industrial centres at Tjeldbergodden in the middle of the country.
The Heidrun field on the Halten Bank has yielded some 660 million barrels of oil since it came on stream, and is currently flowing about 150,000 barrels per day. Annual gas output totals roughly 1.3 billion cubic metres.
Crude is transported by shuttle tanker to Statoil’s terminal at Mongstad near Bergen, and a total of 815 consignments have so far been delivered from the field.
Roughly two million cubic metres of gas flow every day through the Haltenpipe line to the Tjeldbergodden complex, and to European customers in the Åsgard Transport system via the Kårstø processing plant north of Stavanger.
Heidrun created an industrial adventure because of the Haltenpipe solution and the associated development on land, notes Jon Bakken, operations vice president for the field.
In addition to the pipeline receiving terminal, Tjeldbergodden facilities include a methanol plant, an air separation unit and a gas liquefaction plant.
The methanol plant ranks as one of the world’s largest, with an annual capacity of 900,000 tonnes or 25 per cent of the European total for this chemical.
Heidrun has enjoyed very high regularity, and ranks as one of the two-three best Norwegian fields in that respect.
Purposeful efforts to improve oil recovery have helped to boost estimated oil reserves in the field to about 1,130 million barrels.
Statoil is working on plans to raise this figure by a further 10 per cent, and has ambitions to achieve an even bigger increase.
“Establishing the Heidrun operations organisation at Stjørdal near Trondheim laid the basis for a big team of production and reservoir development specialists, and for Statoil’s establishment and commitment in mid-Norway,” observes Mr Bakken.