Norway’s Aker BP Doubles Reserve Estimate of North Sea Oilfield
- May 26, 2023
- Posted by: Quatro Strategies
- Category: Energy
Norway’s Aker BP said it made a much bigger discovery in its Yggdrasil oilfield in the North Sea than previously estimated. Preliminary estimates suggest that the area includes a gross recoverable volume of 40 million-90 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), much bigger than the company’s previous calculations of between 18 million and 45 million boe. The discovery will significantly enhance Aker BP’s resource base for the Yggdrasil development, which previously was estimated at 650M gross boe. The oil discovery is located within production licenses 873 and 442: In license 873, with Equinor and PGNiG Upstream Norway, a subsidiary of Polish state owned energy company PGNiG, as partners. The plan for development and operations for this project was submitted to Norwegian authorities in December 2022, with production scheduled to start in 2027.
The North Sea is home to considerable amounts of known oil and gas reserves. Norway’s Oil and Gas Authority says known reserves of oil and gas in the region at the end of 2020 amounted to 4.4 billion boe.
According to Oil and Gas Authority’s Vision 2035, taking into account future exploration, 14.9 billion boe could potentially be extracted between now and 2035. The figures in Vision 2035 were based on an assumption of an oil price of $60 per barrel of oil and 55 pence per thermal unit of gas. With current oil prices, it should be economic to continue production in the North Sea as per the agency’s estimates. The industry has been able to lower drilling costs considerably since the oil slump of 2014.
The UK government is currently weighing whether to approve a giant new oil and gas field in the North Sea, despite warnings from climate scientists and energy economists against any new fossil fuel projects. The Rosebank oilfield has the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil over its lifetime
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