Equinor announced that they and partners Suncor and Siccar Point have now agreed a new schedule for the Rosebank field on the UK shelf, meaning that the final investment decision must be made by May 2022.

Last fall, Equinor agreed with Chevron to buy their stake in the field, and analytics firm WoodMackenzie later stated that production could start in 2024 if an investment decision was made in 2024.

Equinor would not say a date for a possible start of production now, but stated that British authorities had extended the license to Rosebank for three years.

– Together with our partners Suncor and Siccar Point, we are fully committed to realizing this development, which has high expectations, said Hedda Felin, director of Equinor’s offshore operations in the UK and Ireland, in a statement. pers conference.

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Will cut costs

It has been more than 14 years since the Rosebank was discovered, but Chevron has never pushed the button to start development to increase the estimated 300 million barrels of oil equivalent that is in the field.

The reason was that it was a demanding reservoir and Equinor was bought because they saw an opportunity to cut costs and make the project better.

The company has recently spoken several times that it believes it can draw synergies from the fact that they now have three similar projects in the northern, rugged region all of which will be expanded with floating production units: Johan Castberg in the Barents Sea, Bay du Nord in Canada and Rosebank.

– We believe that more value can be created at Rosebank, including opportunities to reduce development costs. There are similarities with other recent projects in the Equinor portfolio, such as Johan Castberg and Bay du Nord, where we have made significant improvements in solution design, particularly in the way we project and plan new developments in the weatherproof area, but also through the use of digitization, said Hedda Felin.

How much the development costs is unclear, but WoodMackenzie’s previous estimate was around 50 billion kroner.

Equinor has several projects in the UK, including the Mariner oil field due to start production later this year and several offshore wind farms.

– Together with our large portfolio of offshore wind and our oil and gas shipments, this strengthens our position as an important energy partner for the UK, said Torgrim Reitan, Executive Vice President for International Development and Production at Equinor, about Rosebank.