Statoil concluded agreements for the purchase and sale of Skinfaks field license interests in production licenses 152, 277, and 037E in the North Sea. These agreements will simplify the development and operation of the discovery.
Hydro bought 9% of the field while ConocoPhillips, Shell, and ExxonMobil purchased shares of Skinfaks in section PL 037E. These changes mean that interests in the field will be the same as for Gullfaks in PL 050, where Statoil has 61%, Petoro 30%, and Hydro 9%.
"Harmonizing license interests saves costs and simplifies work on Skinfaks," explains Thomas Ladsten, project manager in the portfolio management unit of Exploration & Production Norway.
"This is partly because a number of commercial agreements between the various license groups can be avoided. Such harmonization is also one of our overall aims on the Norwegian continental shelf in order to simplify operations and enhance efficiency."
A plan for development and operation of Skinfaks was submitted to the Ministry for Petroleum and Energy in December, with production beginning in November 2006. Skinfaks will tie back to the Gullfaks C platform. A subsea production system will connect to the existing seabed template on the Gullfaks South satellite and use existing pipelines from there to Gullfaks C.
The agreements will have accounting effect from Jan. 1, 2005 and are conditional on the approval of the Norwegian authorities.
2/7/05
