Statoil ASA

Statoil has extensive heavy oil experiences from offshore fields in Norway and Brazil. The Mariner field was discovered in 1981 and Statoil entered the license as operator in 2007 with the aim of finally unlocking the resources.

Statoil expects to start production from Mariner in 2017. The field is estimated to produce for 30 years, with average production of around 55,000 barrels of oil per day over the plateau period from 2017 to 2020.

The Mariner Field consists of two shallow reservoirs, the Maureen Formation and the Heimdal Sandstones of the Lista Formation, with nearly 2 billion barrels of oil in place and expected reserves of more than 250 million barrels of oil. Both formations yield heavy oil of around 12 to 14 API.

The heavy oil project will require pioneering technology in order to be developed. Since its discovery in 1981, the Mariner field has been subject to a number of development studies by different operators prior to Statoil becoming the operator in 2007. The field will be developed with a production, drilling and quarters (PDQ) platform, based on a steel jacket, with 50 active well slots, and a floating storage unit (FSU) of 850,000 bbls capacity. In addition a jack-up rig will be used for the first 4 – 5 years.

The Mariner Field is located on the East Shetland Platform of the UK North Sea approximately 150km east of the Shetland Isles. Statoil acquired 44.44% and operatorship for Mariner from Chevron in 2007. Statoil acquired a further 20.6667% of Mariner from Nautical Petroleum in 2010. JX Nippon Exploration and Production (U.K.) Ltd(28.89%) and Alba Resources Limited, (6%) are partners in Mariner. Alba Resources Limited are a wholly owned subsidiary of Cairn Energy PLC.