Shutdown: Norway Finally Shuts Down Veslefrikk Oil Field

Stavanger, Norway - Every oil reservoir discovered and developed around the world at sometime is eventually pumped dry. After 30 years and a production of 400 million barrels of oil equivalent, the shutdown of the oil field will begin in the spring of 2022. The plugging of the wells has already started, the oil and gas company Equinor announced.

The Veslefrik oil field was discovered back in 1981 and it came on stream in 1989. "Veslefrikk was a technologically pathbreaking development which has paved the way for new, lighter offshore structures after the era of concrete giants in the North Sea," said Geir Sørtveit, senior vice present at Operations West at Equinor.

Of the two units, Veslefrikk A and B, the plan is for the Veslefrikk B platform to be towed ashore for dismantling in the fall of 2022 and Veslefrikk A to be removed in 2025/26.

Crude oil production in the North Sea by the littoral states of the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany dates back to the early 1970s. After an increase in crude oil production and an oil peak in the 1990s, oil production in the North Sea continues to decline.

Source: IWR Online, 23 Feb 2021