Statoil Snøhvit Field Halts Oil Development

Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil has announced that its Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea will not be developed for oil after analysis proved poor oil potential.

The company says that evaluations undertaken 'show that such a development would not be economically viable' and therefore the Snøhvit partnership has decided to cease all work relating to oil zone development.

The announcement comes a few days after gas production at the field commenced, which is expected to pump out pump out 5.7 billion cubic metres of gas a year (550 million cubic feet a day).

An appraisal well was drilled in the Snøhvit structure earlier in the summer. The well confirmed the presence of oil with well data being analysed and evaluated together with other geological information.

"These analyses show the presence of oil to be significantly less than we expected to find in this structure," says senior vice president for the Tromsø Patch business cluster Geir Pettersen.

By Ozge Ibrahim