Equinor Johan Castberg PRM artist's impression

Equinor: Permanent reservoir monitoring to boost Johan Castberg recovery rates

Alcatel Submarine Networks will be providing permanent reservoir monitoring (PRM) services at Equinor’s Johan Castberg field in the Barents Sea. In support of this, Alcatel has signed a letter of intent with Nexans for delivery of subsea cable.

Johan Castberg PRM artistic impression; Image source: Equinor
Equinor Johan Castberg PRM artist's impression
Johan Castberg PRM artistic impression; Image source: Equinor

Under the contract awarded by Equinor, Alcatel will install seismic sensors permanently on the seabed at Johan Castber field, providing better images of reservoir changes at a more frequent rate.

Equinor says that the amount and the quality of the information generated from this system will be central its plans for the use of digital technology at the Johan Castberg field.

“This kind of data has a large potential in relation to visualization, modeling and gradually also predictive analyses,” Equinor said,

Equinor’s Johan Castberg project director Knut Gjertsen says PRM will be an important tool in improving the Johan Castberg recovery rate.

“The technology is developed in Norway, and the contract is awarded by exercising an option in the framework agreement on PRM that we entered into with Alcatel when signing a corresponding contract for the North Sea Johan Sverdrup field in January this year,” Equinor said. said.

Equinor has said that Johan Castberg and Johan Sverdrup will share the PRM project management, leading to both synergies and savings.

“Johan Sverdrup and Johan Castberg are the first fields in the world to install this tool before production start,” Equinor added.

Nexans scope

Per Equinor, Nexans, as a subcontractor to Alcatel, will produce the backbone cable network and inter-station cable at their facilities in Rognan, Norway. The supply will include more than 200km of subsea cable.

“This is an important contract which strengthens Equinor’s presence in the north. Seismic stations will be incorporated into the cables at ASN’s facility in Calais, France,” Equinor said.

“Equinor’s fields on NCS have a world-class recovery rate, and we expect our current portfolio of producing and sanctioned fields to achieve 50% recovery. We do, however, have an ambition to hit 60% through IOR-initiatives for our oil fields,” the Norwegian oil giant added.

“More than 200 kilometers of fiber-optic seismic cables and 3700 sensors will be spread on the seabed at the Johan Castberg field. The cables will start sending images before the field starts up in 2022, providing a basis and information about the reservoirs before production start. This will increase the well placement precision and help “control” production and injection, says Benedicte Nordang, subsea manager for Johan Castberg.

Estimated recoverable reserves for Johan Castberg is 450-650 million barrels. Planned start-up is 2022. The Johan Castberg partnership consists of Equinor (operator 50%), Eni Norge (30%) and Petoro (20%).