Wintershall drilling subsea first in Norway

German oil and gas producer Wintershall began drilling in the Maria field in March 2017, writes Anna Cole-Bailey. With reserves estimated in the region of up to 180mn barrels, Maria is Wintershall’s first subsea field in Norway. The field is at a depth of 300 metres in the Haltenbanken area of the Norwegian Sea and investment in the project is estimated to be around NKr15bn ($1.76mn). Maria will be tied back to the existing Kristin, Heidrun and Asgard B field facilities.

The company reached a historic level of production in 2016 of 165mn boe – increasing its production in the last decade by around 50%. It has also doubled its commercially recovery oil and gas reserves from 814mn boe to 1.62mn boe in this period. Based in Kassel, Wintershall is the largest internationally active crude oil and natural gas producer in Germany.

At its annual press conference in March this year, Wintershall CEO Mario Mehren, put the company’s success down to ‘making the right investment early… in oil and gas fields in regions with low production costs and in expanding strong partnerships’. He added that the company is ‘benefiting from its diversified portfolio with low production and reserve replacement costs – especially in areas like Russia and Argentina’. Wintershall has interests in 15 onshore and offshore fields in Argentina and a 50% share in the development of block 1 A of the Achimov formation in the Urengoy field in Western Siberia. By the end of January 2017 some 80 wells were producing from Urengoy and it is planned to develop blocks 4A and 5A of the Achimov formation in partnership with Gazprom.

The much higher production volumes in 2016 came primarily from Norway and Russia. Norway remains a ‘core region’ for Wintershall, stated Mehren. He also noted that the company plans to invest €4.4bn in oil and gas activities by 2021, with Russia, Argentina and Norway as top areas of interest and ‘spending discipline’ a key area of focus. 

Photo: The Deepsea Stavanger drilling rig in the port of Agotnes, outside Bergen, Norway, in February 2016, ready for departure to the Maria field

Source: Wintershall