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The Statfjord oil field is a large oil and gas field covering 580 km2 in the U.K.-Norwegian boundary of the North Sea at a water depth of 145 m, discovered in 1974 by
Mobil Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999. ...
and since 1987 operated by Equinor. It is a trans-median field crossing the Norwegian and UK North Sea Boundary with approximately 15% being in the UK Continental Shelf waters. At peak production it produced over of oil per day. Oil is loaded offshore and taken directly to refineries; gas is transported via the
Statpipe The Statpipe pipeline is a natural gas system, which links northern North Sea gas fields with the Norway's gas export system. It transports gas from Statfjord, Gullfaks, Heimdal, Veslefrikk, Snorre, Brage, Tordis and Statfjord gas fields. Hi ...
pipeline to mainland Norway.


Geology

The field is located in the northern part of the
Viking Graben Vikings ; non, vĂ­kingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
, north of the
Viking Trough Vikings ; non, vĂ­kingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
and east of the
East Shetland Platform East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from ...
, in the same general area as the
Brent oilfield The Brent field was an oil and gas field located in the East Shetland Basin of the North Sea, north-east of Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, Scotland, at the water depth of . The field operated by Shell UK Limited was discovered in 1971 and w ...
discovered in 1971, and the
Cormorant oilfield The Cormorant oilfield is located north east of Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland, in block number 211/26a. It was discovered in September 1972 at a depth of . Estimated recovery is of oil. The oil reservoir is located at a depth of . The discove ...
,
Thistle oil field The Thistle oil field is a large oil field in the northern sector of the North Sea. The oil field, discovered in September 1972 by Signal Oil and Gas Company, is produced over the Thistle Alpha platform, located 125 nautical miles northeast of ...
,
Dunlin oilfield The Dunlin oilfield is situated 195 km northeast of Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland, in block number 211/23a and 211/24a. It was originally operated by Shell but was sold in 2008 and is now operated by Fairfield Energy and partners MCX. Under Fa ...
,
Heather oil field The Heather oil field is a significant crude oil producing field in the UK sector of the northern North Sea, 458 km north-north-east of Aberdeen. Production of oil started in 1978 and ceased in 2019. The Heather Alpha installation is currently (2 ...
and the
Hutton oilfield The Hutton oil field, located on the UK continental shelf, was the location for the first ever production Tension-leg platform, Tension Leg Platform (TLP). History The Hutton oil field is situated in the East Shetland Basin in the UK North Sea o ...
, all discovered by 1973. A regional grid of
reflection seismology Reflection seismology (or seismic reflection) is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earth's subsurface from reflected seismic waves. The method requires a controlled seismi ...
lines showed the Brent structural trend extended into the area forming a "large northeast-trending and northwesterly tilted" (at 6-8 degrees)
Fault block Fault blocks are very large blocks of rock, sometimes hundreds of kilometres in extent, created by tectonic and localized stresses in Earth's crust. Large areas of bedrock are broken up into blocks by faults. Blocks are characterized by rela ...
, partly eroded on the east flank, with Jurassic and Cretaceous
shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...
s trapping any oil in the Middle Jurassic Brent deltaic and Late Triassic- Early Jurassic Statfjord
fluvial In geography and geology, fluvial processes are associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps, the term glaciofluvial or fluviog ...
sandstones originating from the Kimmeridge Clay Formation. The field is on the same structural trend but separated from the Brent Field, 20 km to the southwest, by normal faulting and a structural saddle. A Conoco 211/24-1 well drilled in 1972-1973 on the U.K. side of the structure turned out to be downdip to the
Oil-water contact In the hydrocarbon industry water contact is the elevation above which fluids other than water can be found in the pores of a rock. For example, in a traditional hand-excavated water well, the level at which the water stabilizes represents the wa ...
and it wasn't until the April 1974
Mobil Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999. ...
well 33/12-1, on the Norwegian side, that oil was discovered in 160 m of Brent Formation. A second well "established an oil-water contact at 2584 m subsea" and a third well discovered a 127 m oil column in the Statfjord Formation with an oil-water contact 2806 m subsea.


Production

The Statfjord field has three
condeep Condeep is a make of gravity-based structure for oil platforms invented and patented by engineer Olav Mo in 1972, which were fabricated by Norwegian Contractors in Stavanger, Norway.Fagerberg; Mowery; Verspagen, p.192 ''Condeep'' is an abbrevia ...
concrete production platforms, A, B and C. Each platform is made up of approximately 250,000 tonnes of concrete with 40,000 tonnes of top-side processing and accommodation facilities. Statfjord holds the record for the highest daily production ever recorded for a European oil field (outside Russia) : (
crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude ...
plus natural gas liquids) were produced on January 16, 1987. Statoil has planned the "late life" of the field and expects to ultimately recover 68% of
Oil in Place Oil in place (OIP) (not to be confused with original oil-in-place (OOIP)) is a specialist term in petroleum geology that refers to the total oil content of an oil reservoir. As this quantity cannot be measured directly, it has to be estimated fr ...
. but more than 60% have been produced already, leaving modest oil reserves in the order of , so the focus will now be placed on extracting the associated natural gas that had been re-injected into the field all over its life. As a mainly natural gas producer, Statfjord is scheduled to remain active until 2032.


Statfjord oil spill

In December 2007, thousands of tonnes of oil were spilled into the North Sea during the loading of a tanker at the Statfjord oil field. The spill, estimated at 21,750 barrels (approx 3,000 metric tons), was the country's second largest ever, according to Norway's oil safety authority. The accident happened in rough weather while the tanker ''Navion Britannica'' was loading oil from a storage buoy, according to the operator Equinor.


See also

* List of oil and gas fields of the North Sea * List of oil spills


References


External links


The Statfjord area

Statfjord A approaches journey's end

Statfjord in Aftenbladet Energi Interactive Energy Map
{{Resources in Norway Equinor oil and gas fields Natural gas fields in Norway North Sea oil fields Oil fields in Norway 1979 establishments in Norway