Norwegian energy company Statoil said it awarded a rig contract worth more than half a billion dollars for work in the giant Johan Sverdrup field.
"This contract is an important milestone for the Johan Sverdrup project," Margareth Ovrum, a vice president in charge of drilling programs for Statoil, said in a statement. "We have secured an efficient rig that will help maximize values from the field on competitive terms."
Peak production is expected to be as high as 650,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Field operator Statoil said the field will account for 25 percent of the combined production from the Norwegian continental shelf once it's in full swing.
The company estimates Johan Sverdrup should generate $200 billion in revenues over the next 50 years. Production is slated for 2019, a year later than originally planned.
Statoil said two contracts awarded to offshore company Odfjell Drilling were valued at more than $550 million. Contracts include the deployment of the Deepsea Atlantic drilling rig and drilling services at Johan Sverdrup.
The drilling program for the deepwater rig includes 12 pilot wells for the field prior to the start of full production in 2019. The terms of the three-year rig contract begin in March 2016
Odfjell in February was awarded an engineering contract to build a drilling platform for Johan Sverdrup.
Statoil said the first phase of operations at the field will represent $15 billion in investments. The company estimates the recoverable resources at between 1.4 billion and 2.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Johan Sverdrup is the fifth largest discovery ever made on the Norwegian continental shelf, described by the nation's energy regulator as "gigantic."
