Norway: Aker BP Board Greenlights $19B Offshore Field Development Projects

The Norwegian oil and gas company Aker BP said Friday it would vote in favor of submitting Plans for Development and Operation (PDO) for the NOAKA field development project, the Valhall PWP-Fenris project, the Skarv Satellite Project, and the Utsira High projects, all offshore Norway.

If the PDOs are approved by the respective license partnerships, which is expected to occur during the first half of December, the plan is to submit the PDOs to the authorities before year-end.

Net to Aker BP, the oil and gas resources in the projects are estimated to be approximately 730 million barrels of oil equivalent, in line with the company’s July strategy update when adjusting for the previously announced postponement of the Wisting project, the company said.

Aker BP’s share of the investments in the projects is estimated to be approximately $19 billion (nominal) in the period 2023-2028, and the corresponding average break-even oil price is estimated to be USD 35-40 per barrel (calculated with 10 percent discount rate and accounting for the announced changes to the Norwegian Petroleum Tax adding on average USD 5-6/bbl to the break-even of the projects).

Separately, oilfield services firm Aker Solutions said that it had, through the Aker BP alliance models, executed the front-end engineering and design (FEED) work for these projects over the last year, under a single source supplier setting. 

Aker Solutions expects that the projects combined could lead to contract awards worth around NOK 45 billion [$4,62B] of order intake in December 2022, subject to the PDO submission in mid-December 2022.