Sweden's Lundin Set for Busy Year Offshore Norway

Sweden's Lundin Petroleum is set for a busy year on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in spite of the lower oil price, according to Kristin Færøvik – the managing director of the firm's Norwegian operations.

Speaking to journalists at a presentation in Oslo Thursday, Færøvik itemized several production and exploration developments that Lundin plans on the NCS later this year, after the company delivered on four key projects during the past 14 months.

In terms of production, Færøvik noted that its Edvard Grieg field is expected to reach gross plateau production of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day during the second half of 2016. Edvard Grieg came on stream at the end of November last year, and Færøvik pointed out that as well as seeing a strong reservoir performance during its initial months of operation, the field's facilities have also performed very well.

"I've been in the industry for quite some time and I think I'm on fairly firm ground when I say the start-up of Edvard Grieg has been one of the most successful ever in terms of the uptime of our facilities," she said.

As well as Edvard Grieg, Lundin has also started up the Bertam, Bøyla and Brynhild fields since December 2014. This means that the firm will more than double its net production figure to between 60,000 and 70,000 boepd during 2016, compared to the 32,300 boepd average that Lundin produced in 2015. Once both phases of the Johan Sverdrup field have been developed, which is scheduled for 2022, Lundin will have more than doubled production again to some 150,000 boepd, according to Færøvik.

As far as Lundin's exploration activity in 2016 is concerned, the firm plans to further appraise its Alta discovery in the Loppa High area of the Barents Sea this summer before going on to drill the Neiden Prospect.

"And then when we are done with Alta and Neiden, we are moving to this license to the west of Alta – a prospect called Filicudi," Færøvik said. "And that license holds a string of prospects and so we are very excited about Filicudi as well."

When asked if Lundin, which employs some 250 onshore and 100 offshore personnel (on rotation) on the NCS, might take advantage of recent widespread job losses in the Norwegian upstream sector in order to pick up more staff, Færøvik said that there are a few opportunities in the firm for reservoir engineers and other subsurface specialists.

"The low oil price is of course challenging for all of us. There is no doubt that we have to be very careful about how we spend our money and prioritize very carefully, make sure that we continue to operate in a disciplined and lean manner. We have a fairly lean operation that obviously helps us tremendously in times like these. And so far we have not had to make any adjustments to our staffing despite the oil price environment," she said.

"We can only employ people for whom we have work. So we have actually recruited some people this year and are in the process of recruiting more, but we cannot take on staff for whom we don't have exciting work."