A new gas field in the Barents Sea for Statoil

A tanker for liquid natural gas at Melkøya outside Hammerfest, Norway. (Thomas Nilsen/The Independent Barents Observer)
Norwegian oil major Statoil and its partners at the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea have decided to develop Askeladd, a field just south west of Snøhvit, with three wells via two new subsea templates, the company informs.

In total, five billion kroner will be invested to secure a supply of another 21 billion cubic meters of gas.

«This is the next step in the development of Snøhvit. Askeladd will help maintain a plateau production rate at the Hammerfest LNG plant until 2023 and is a profitable investment,» says Torget Rød, Statoil’s senior vice president for project development.

Today, more than 400 people are working at the plant producing liquid natural gas (LNG) on the small island Melkøya just outside the town of Hammerfest in the Norwegian north.

«The Snøhvit license contains enough gas to maintain production beyond 2050 and Hammerfest LNG will provide jobs for many years to come,» says Per Henry Gonsholt, acting production director at Hammerfest LNG.

Additional wells at Askeladd could be developed in the future. All installations at the fields are subsea, connected to the production plant at Melkøya via pipelines on the seafloor.

Correction : Because of an Eye on the Arctic editing error, the previous version of this text identified an oil field instead of a gas field in the headline.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Arctic nickel, not oil, could soon power the world’s cars, Blog by Mia Bennett, Cryopolitics

Germany: Cheap oil from the Arctic? Fake news, says climate economist Kemfert, blog by Irene Quaile, Deutsche Welle

Norway: Dwindling interest in Norway’s Arctic oil raises many questions, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: A new wave of optimism for Arctic oil cooperation in Barents, The Independent Barents Observer

United States: Big questions emerge over $43 billion gas-export deal between Alaska and China, Alaska

Thomas Nilsen, The Independent Barents Observer

For more news from the Barents region visit The Independent Barents Observer.

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