Wintershall and its partners Centrica and Petoro have received consent from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) for the starting up production at the 180 mboe Maria offshore oil project in the Norwegian sea off Trondheim, in Norway. As per the current Plan for Development and Operations (PDO), the total cost of the operations is expected to reach NKR15.7bn (€1.6bn). The production start-up is now planned for December 2017, which is 10 months ahead of the original schedule (fourth quarter of 2018).
The project is developed by Wintershall Norge (operator of the license) with a 50% share, in partnership with Petoro (30%) and Centrica Resources (20%). The total recoverable reserves are estimated at 29 mcm of oil, 1.3 Mt NGL and 2.3 bcm of gas. As per the current schedule, the field is likely to have a production lifetime of 22 years. Under the approved development solution, the Maria reservoir will be linked via a subsea tieback to the Kristin, Heidrun and Åsgard B production platforms. The processed oil will be delivered to the Åsgard field for storage and offloading, while gas will be transported via the Åsgard Transport System to Kårstø.