Drilling under way at Maria offshore Mid-Norway

March 23, 2017
The semisubmersible Deepsea Stavanger has started drilling the first of six development wells for Wintershall’s Maria field development in the southern Norwegian Sea.

Offshore staff

KASSEL, Germany – The semisubmersible Deepsea Stavanger has started drilling the first of six development wells for Wintershall’s Maria field development, 200 km (124 mi) offshore Kristiansund in the southern Norwegian Sea.

Drilling should continue for up to 580 days. The rig will drill two production wells and one injector through each of the two pre-installed subsea structures.

The longest wells will be more than 6,500 m (21,325 ft) and will be drilled horizontally for up to 2,000 m (6,562 ft) through the reservoir zones.

Further marine and subsea operations will continue in order to finalize the tie-in of Maria field to nearby infrastructure.

Last year, two risers and most equipment were installed linking the Kristin semisubmersible platform to the subsea installations, to facilitate transfer of hydrocarbons and controlMaria’s subsea and well instrumentation.

This year a metering system will also be installed to measure oil and gas produced by Maria, along with a subsea control unit. On the Heidrun platform, a balcony has been installed to accommodate a new water injection riser to sustain Maria’s production.

The existing injection system will be joined by a new water treatment module, and the wells will then be prepared for production.

In line with the development plan, investments inMaria development are set to reach around NOK15.3 billion ($1.8 billion), including development drilling.

03/23/2017