Located around 80km north of the Heidrun oil field in the Norwegian Sea, the field was initially planned to be decommissioned in 2014, after producing around 700 million barrels of oil equivalent.
The main Norne field’s current recovery factor is 56.5%, which is a top worldwide result for production from subsea fields.
Norne operations vice president Kristin Westvik said: "Thanks to systematic maintenance of Norne for 17 years the vessel is now in a good technical condition.
"We have also aimed to facilitate improved recovery and phase-in of new discoveries to the Norne vessel. In light of this we are now considering extending Norne’s life to 2030.
"We now aim to increase the recovery factor to 60%. The remaining resources in the Norne area may total as much as 300 million barrels of oil equivalent — the equivalent of an Aasta Hansteen field."
Production flows from a full 15 subsea templates and 26 exploration wells, which have been drilled in the Norne licence alone, including five successes: the Norne, Stær, Svale, Dompap and Fossekall fields.
In addition to launching a project in 2017 with the scope and time of investments, Statoil will apply for an extended technical life for Norne by 2021.
