Equinor and its partners in the Troll gas field have decided to invest more than $400 million in a new subsea development to boost gas production from the huge Norwegian gas field in the North Sea.
Equinor and its partners Petoro, Shell, TotalEnergies, and ConocoPhillips have decided to invest just over 4 billion Norwegian crowns, or $412 million, in a new subsea development that will increase gas production from the Troll field, the Norwegian energy major said on Friday.
Equinor is betting on increasing its oil and gas production in the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in the coming decades to meet a large part of Europe’s energy needs and position Norway to remain a key reliable supplier of oil and gas to its closest partner, the European Union.
Norway, Western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer, replaced in 2022 Russia as Europe’s single largest gas supplier after ramping up exports following the halt of most of Russia’s pipeline gas to Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Equinor now looks to launch the third step of Phase 3 of Troll with ambition to start production from the new gas development as early as in 2028.
The so-called TWIN project is expected to contribute around 11 billion standard cubic meters of gas. It is the third step of Troll phase 3, which produces gas from the Troll West reservoir.
The second step of Troll phase 3 is expected to start producing this year and ensure continued high production from Troll A and Kollsnes until 2030.
“Our fields are ageing, new discoveries are smaller and costs are increasing. If we are to continue delivering, we need to do something radically different,” said Gunnar Nakken, senior vice president for projects and subsea Norway at Equinor.
“Our ambition is to halve costs and execution time for our subsea projects and develop six to eight such projects per year towards 2035.”
The announcement of the Troll gas expansion comes days after Equinor said it would advance Norway’s largest oilfield, Johan Sverdrup, to Phase 4, after recent appraisal drilling confirmed additional recoverable resources.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com