Wintershall Goes Subsea With Operatorship Offshore Norway

Wintershall, the exploration and production subsidiary of Germany-headquartered BASF, has taken over operatorship of the subsea oil and gas field Vega from Statoil this week.  The Vega Field is located in the Norwegian section of the North Sea and ties in via subsea pipeline to the Gjøa platform located 28 kilometers to the east.

This news marks Wintershall’s first operated subsea tie-in field in Norway and is the company’s second operatorship on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) along with the Brage Field.  Production from both fields totals more than 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

With the further purchase of shares in the Aasta Hansteen gas development and the Polarled pipeline project as part of the same deal, Wintershall strengthened its strategic partnership with Statoil and reaffirmed its long term commitment to Norway.

Wintershall is the operator of the Vega field with a 55.6% working interest. Partners include: Petoro (28.3%), Bayerngas (7.3%), GDF Suez (4.4%), and Idemitsu (4.4%).

“Becoming the operator of Vega means that we are building up our expertise as a subsea operator on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Subsea fields are already a vital part of the oil and gas infrastructure in Norway and we believe they will grow in importance. With Vega we are gaining the experience that will be crucial in operating our future own developments, like the Maria Field in the Norwegian Sea,” said Bernd Schrimpf, Managing Director of Wintershall Norge.

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