Agbami Development Approved

The Statoil board has approved plans for the group's participation with an 18.85 per cent interest in a unitized development of the Agbami oil field off Nigeria.

This country is defined as a possible core asset for Statoil, and Agbami will play an important role in the growth of group production in the short term.

The project will provide some 40,000 daily barrels of equity crude at plateau, says Roald Riise, senior vice president for development and production in International Exploration & Production (INT).

Located 110 kilometers off Nigeria in 1,500 meters of water, the field is set to produce 250,000 barrels per day when it comes on stream in the first quarter of 2008.

Agbami was proven in block 216 by Texaco during 1998. Two years later, Statoil's Ekoli-1 well confirmed that the discovery extends into block 217.

Development of the field has been unitized between these two blocks. ChevronTexaco is operator with a 68.15 per cent interest, while Petrobras holds the remaining 13 per cent.

With reserves put at 770 million barrels, Agbami is to be developed with a subsea production system tied back to a production and storage ship.

The latter will be almost identical with the vessel producing the Girassol development off Angola, in which Statoil has an interest of 13.33 per cent.

Plans call for plateau output to be reached within six months of the start to production.

Associated gas will be separated from the wellstream and returned to the reservoir.

"We want to contribute our experience from fields with similar subsea installations and ships for production and storage," says Mr. Riise.

Statoil will play an active role in the development, with dedicated personnel seconded to the project team. Mr Riise reports that five key staff are already in place.