Aasta Hansteen

Aasta Hansteen Gas Field Profile

Location and Geology

• The Aasta Hansteen gas field is located in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, approximately 300 kilometers west of Sandnessjøen and 120 kilometers northwest of the Norne field.
• It is situated in the Vøring Basin at a water depth of 1,300 meters and a reservoir depth of 3,000 meters in the Upper Cretaceous sandstone of the Nise Formation.

Discovery and Ownership

• The field was discovered in 1997 by BP with the drilling of the 6707/10-1 well. It was initially known as the Luva field.
• In 2006, Equinor (formerly Statoil Petroleum) acquired the field. The current ownership is divided among Equinor (51%), Wintershall DEA Norge (24%), OMV (Norge) (15%), and ConocoPhillips Skandinavia (10%).

Development and Production

• The plan for development and operation (PDO) was submitted to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in December 2012 and approved in 2013.
• The field is developed using a Single Point Anchor Reservoir (SPAR) floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, which is the largest SPAR platform in the world and the first on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The platform is 339 meters tall and weighs 70,000 tons.
• The development includes two subsea templates with four slots each and two subsea templates with one slot each, tied back to the SPAR platform via pipelines and steel catenary risers.
• Gas production began on December 16, 2018. The field also includes the Snefrid Nord discovery, which came on stream towards the end of 2019.

Reserves and Production

• The total recoverable gas reserves are estimated to be approximately 55.6 billion standard cubic meters (Sm³) of gas and 0.6 million Sm³ of condensate, corresponding to 353 million barrels of oil equivalent.
• The field is produced using natural aquifer drive and pressure depletion. Seven production wells have been drilled to recover the gas.

Infrastructure and Transportation

• The produced gas is transported via the 480-kilometer-long Polarled pipeline to the Nyhamna gas substation in Møre og Romsdal County, Norway, for further export to Europe.
• The Polarled pipeline, operated by Gassco, also connects to other fields in the Norwegian Sea and was completed in September 2015.
• Condensate is offloaded to shuttle tankers and transported to the market.

Contractors and Construction

• The engineering, procurement, installation, and commissioning (EPIC) contract for the topside and hull/substructure of the SPAR FPSO was awarded to Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) in January 2013, valued at $1.1 billion.
• Aker Solutions and Technip were awarded the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract for the SPAR platform in March 2012. McDermott completed the FEED study for the topsides in 2018.
• Other contractors involved include IKM Ocean Design for pipeline front-end engineering, Lankhorst Ropes for deepwater mooring ropes, and Boskalis for transportation of the hull and topside.

Investments and Economic Impact

• The estimated investment in the Aasta Hansteen development is approximately NOK 37.5 billion ($4.6 billion).
• The project is significant for Norway's position as a major gas exporter, supporting long-term and reliable gas supply to Europe and the UK.

Operations and Management

• The field is operated by Equinor from Harstad, with the supply base located in Sandnessjøen and the helicopter base in Brønnøysund.
• The field is currently producing at plateau, and there are plans for future low-pressure production. The Irpa field, discovered in 2015 and formerly known as Asterix, will be developed with a tie-back to the Aasta Hansteen platform.

Historical and Cultural Significance

• The field was renamed Aasta Hansteen in March 2012, in honor of a Norwegian women's rights activist, painter, and author.