Norway's Equinor resumes production from Njord field following upgrade

Norway's state-controlled Equinor has resumed production at the Njord oil and gas field in the Norwegian Sea, it said Dec. 28, after a six-year hiatus while upgrade work was carried out.

Njord came online in 1997 and was initially designed to remain in operation until 2013.

However, it was decided to extend the life of the field as there were large volumes left in the ground and additional discoveries nearby such as the Hyme field that came into operation in 2013. Production was suspended in 2016.

Oil produced at Njord is transported by pipeline to the Njord Bravo floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel and onward by tankers to the market.

Gas output -- with a capacity of some 6.5 million cu m/d -- is exported through a 40-km pipeline connected to the Asgard transportation system and from there to the onshore Karsto processing terminal.

"Our ambition is to produce about the same volume from Njord and Hyme as we have produced so far, more than 250 million barrels of oil equivalent," Kjetil Hove, Equinor's executive vice president for exploration and production Norway, said in a statement.

The Njord platform and FSO have also been prepared to receive production from two new subsea fields, Bauge and Fenja, which hold a total of 110 million barrels of recoverable resources.

"This is the first time a platform and a FSO have been disconnected from the field, upgraded, and towed back, and we have now doubled the field's life," Geir Tungesvik, Equinor's executive vice president for projects, drilling and procurement, said.

Hove said the development was "illustrative of our strategic work to extend the fields' productive life and tying back new discoveries to existing infrastructure."

Higher costs

Production from the Njord field was initially intended to resume two years ago, but the upgrade proved more challenging than expected in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This also led to significantly higher costs, with capital expenditure totaling NOK31 billion ($3.2 billion) compared with an original budget of NOK17 billion, Equinor said.

However, the company said the project would still be profitable even if oil prices were "far lower" than today.

Dated Brent was assessed at $80.89/b Dec. 23, according to Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Equinor is the operator of Njord with a 27.5% stake. Its partners are Germany's Wintershall Dea (50%) and Neptune Energy (22.5%).

Bauge (operated by Equinor) and Fenja (operated by Neptune) have been developed in parallel with the upgrading of the Njord installations.