Statoil’s Statfjord Field Inaugurated as Cultural Monument, Norway

The Statfjord field was yesterday inaugurated as a cultural monument at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum in Stavanger. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage has chosen the field as one of several symbols significant in the development of modern Norway.

Eirin Sund, member of the Storting and deputy chair of the energy and environmental committee, presided over the official inauguration of Statfjord as a cultural monument.

“Statfjord has helped shape Norway as an energy nation and Statoil as a company,” said Sund.

There was also officially opening the Petroleum Museum’s new exhibition “Statfjord – the barrier-breaking giant”. This exhibition provides an insight into the development of the field, its geology, the people who work on its three platforms, and also a little about the future of Statfjord.

In conjunction with the inauguration of the field as cultural monument, a new website has been launched that fully describes the field and its installations, as well as providing technical documentation and outlining important events in Statfjord’s history.

Mountain of information

The Statfjord cultural monument project team consisted of representatives of the Regional State Archive in Stavanger, the National Library of Norway, the Norwegian Petroleum Museum and Statoil. They had a mountain of information to consider and have worked on documenting Statfjord as a techno-industrial cultural monument since 2008.

The Petroleum Museum was responsible for taking the overall view, surveying the material and deciding what should be stored. The museum was also in charge of preparing and publishing the information.

“The first thing we had to do was to find sensible ways of limiting the selection of material at hand,” explains Finn Krogh, curator of the Norwegian Petroleum Museum.

A living monument

In connection with the intention of the Directorate for Cultural Heritage to systematically document the oil and gas installations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), the Petroleum Museum had previously established documentation projects for the Ekofisk and Frigg fields in the North Sea.

“It was easier to work with a field in full operation than a field that is being phased out,” explains Krogh.

“I have mixed feelings about seeing Statfjord in a museum,” quipped Øystein Michelsen, head of Development and Production.

“It is by all means a field that is still flourishing,” he added, referring to Statfjord’s late phase.

The field was originally scheduled for closure in the 1990s, but it now looks as though Statfjord will be producing until at least 2025.

The field has set a number of production records on the NCS. Statfjord has so far produced 4,738 million barrels of oil equivalents at a value of NOK 1,360 billion.

As Norway’s most productive oil field, Statfjord has been hugely significant for the development of the petroleum industry and the Norwegian economy.

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Press Release, November 30, 2012