The first-ever Barents Sea oilfield — Goliat, of Italian oil company ENI — is on course to become a 100,000-barrel-a-day producer with satellite fields which might influence its component parts.

Twenty wells, offshore floating production and possible water or early gas injection are key points in the designs presided over by ENI’s technical manager for Goliat, Arild Eserud.

“Oil spill is also high on the agenda,” Eserud said.

To comply with Norway’s “zero-emissions” rules, a possible feature of the development includes power from shore for the production vessel. Powering a ship’s rotating production turret would be “a challenge”, Eserud added. The other floating production solution is a Sevan cylindrical-shaped producer.

The Sevan candidate and the standard floating production storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, eliminate the need for expensive prefabrication and heavy lifts.

The different well stream possible from a number of area satellite finds, including Nucula and Alke just west, have curbed interest in a potential pipeline to shore, once a key political consideration.

“A dedicated pipeline would not be good for connecting satellites of different well streams,” Eserud said.

He said the floater solution was decisively less complicated and therefore less costly while holding out technology options for increased oil recovery. A floater was “good for tie-ins and good on Capex.”

A pipeline to onshore storage would have added “NOK5 billion” and sub-sea-to-beach “5 billion more”.

Eserud described Goliat as “two complex reservoirs, or two main areas” which might need gas injection “in the initial period”. The field holds 240 million barrels of oil equivalent, 65 percent of which is oil.

Eni will name its concept by third quarter 2008 after an intense design period. The Norwegian Parliament will likely approve the company’s plan for development and operation by spring 2009. The Parliament, or Storting, has never said no to a Plan for Development and Operation.

The company will, in the meantime, do more environmental and socio-economic analysis.

First oil is due in 2012. Meanwhile, the north Norwegian supply chain is gearing up for the prospect of a greater Goliat. On hand at an Eni presentation seen by Scandoil.com in Tromso, Norway Wednesday was oil-spill outfit NOFI. The company’s Buster series of oil traps deploy quickly by small craft and are “80- to 90 percent efficient” when cleaning up spills.

Tags: DNO, Eni, StatoilHydro