Statoil Says Production Life of Glitne Doubled

The producing life of Statoil's Glitne field in the North Sea has been doubled after an upgrading of its reserves, and the number of production wells will also be twice the original estimate.

A decision to drill a sixth producer has been taken by the licensees, while the plan for development and operation (PDO) specified only three.

Total oil reserves in the field are now put at more than 50 million barrels, postponing the date for shutting it down from 2003 to 2007.

The increase in this figure from the PDO estimate corresponds to a value of NOK 5.2 billion at today's oil price.

Since Glitne came on stream in 2001, new information acquired by Statoil from the wells indicated that the reservoir contains more crude than expected.

A water injection well was accordingly converted for production, and these four producers flowed so well that the licensees approved a fifth well last year. "This fifth producer is living up to our expectations, and confirms that the reserves are even higher than we thought," says field manager Svein Loining.

He reports that working with Glitne represents a special experience because production from the wells has constantly exceeded forecasts.

This prompted a reinterpretation of the seismic data, which confirmed the information from the wells about the presence of more stock tank oil originally in place (Stooip).