“Several drilling rigs have two drilling facilities where these traditionally support one another. However, in the instance of our operations we decided to use these facilities independently to concurrently drill two wellbores”, says Neptune’s Director of Drilling and Wells in Norway, Thor Andre Løvoll in a press release.
Many drilling rigs are equipped with dual drilling capabilities. This was, however, the first time such a feat was carried out from an integrated subsea template structure.
The result was accelerated drilling operations, reduced costs and lowered operational emissions.
The dual drilling was a part of the company’s ongoing drilling campaign at the Fenja field (formerly known as the Pil and Bue discoveries). Fenja is an oil and gas field located in the Norwegian Sea 120 kilometers north of Kristiansund.
With resources of about 97 million barrels of oil equivalents, plateau production is projected to reach approx. 40,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day.
Fenja consists of two hydrocarbon accumulations; the Pil and Bue reservoirs in PL586 on the Halten Terrace.
Both discoveries are in upper Jurassic sandstone reservoirs at depths from 3,200 to 3,500 meters below sea level.
Fenja is scheduled to be put into production by the end of 2021, 11 years after the licensing work began.
“The experience of dual drilling on Fenja has been positive and could see this method adopted as a more standard practice in the future. The current challenges in the market encourage us to re-think the way we do things safely, efficiently and with lower carbon emissions”, continues Thor Andre Løvoll.
The field will be connected to the Njord-A platform 36 kilometers away and will consist of two subsea templates and six wells (three oil producers, two wells for water injection and one wells for gas injection).
The latter well will be converted into a producing gas well towards the end of the field’s lifetime.
Licensing partners in Fenja are Neptune (30 per cent), Vår Energi (45 per cent), Suncor (17.5 per cent) and DNO (7.5 per cent).
A short video from during the dual drilling operations is available here.
TEXT: RONNY SETSÅ
