Only 20% of resources were produced from the Tor field at the time of its shut down in 2015
Image: The Tor field will be redeveloped with an investment of £553-600m. Photo: courtesy of C Morrison/Pixabay.
ConocoPhillips has submitted a plan for development and operation (PDO) to Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy for the redevelopment of the Tor field in the Norwegian North Sea with an investment of NOK6-6.5bn (£553-600m).
Discovered in 1970, the Tor field is contained in in blocks 2/4 and 2/5 in the Ekofisk area, in the southern part of the Norwegian North Sea, 13km northeast of the Ekofisk field.
The oil and gas field, which was brought into production in 1978, was shut down in 2015 after the installation reached the end of its lifetime.
According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), only 20% of resources in the North Sea oil and gas field were produced at the time of its shut down.
Redevelopment plan for the Tor field
The redevelopment project, called Tor II, will be one of the many development opportunities in the Greater Ekofisk Area, that will allow continued operations towards 2050, said ConocoPhillips.
First production from the re-developed Tor field is targeted to be achieved towards the end of 2020.
The offshore Norwegian field will be re-developed through the installation of two new subsea templates that will be tied back into the Ekofisk Complex to tap into an estimated 10 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalents (Sm3) of recoverable reserves.
The company plans to drill seven production wells in the Tor formation along with a pilot well to evaluate the long-term productivity in the Ekofisk formation.
The two-by-four slot Subsea Production System (SPS) of the Tor II project will be connected to the Ekofisk Complex using multiphase production and lift gas pipelines to existing risers located at the Ekofisk 2/4 M wellhead platform.
According to ConocoPhillips, controls and utilities will be enabled via a service umbilical from the same existing platform. The new greenfield facilities will be built nearly a kilometer west of the original Tor platform and will have no connection to the shut-in facilities.
ConocoPhillips Norway & North Africa president Trond-Erik Johansen said: “Having produced the Tor field for 37 years, we are proud to continue to extend development enabling a production lifetime beyond 60 years.
“Tor II is a robust project utilizing available Greater Ekofisk Area capacity for processing and transportation.”
ConocoPhillips Norge is the operator of the Tor Unit with a stake of 30.66% and is partnered by Total E&P Norge (48.20%), Vår Energi (10.82%), Equinor Energy (6.64%) and Petoro (3.69%).