Aker Maritime and RWE-DEA make licence application

Company News - July 14, 2000

Aker Maritime and the German energy company RWE-DEA have filed an application to become licensees of block 35/3 in the Norwegian North Sea.

The block contains a gas field discovered in 1980, but the licence was relinquished by the original licensees in 1989 as development was not considered profitable.

With the aid of new technology and new work models, Aker Maritime and RWE-DEA now see opportunities for profitable development.

This is the first time Aker Maritime has applied to explore for and produce oil and gas on the Norwegian continental shelf.

Co-operating in the licence with RWE-DEA gives Aker Maritime the opportunity to continue to develop technology and solutions for the development and operation of oil and gas fields in a new form of co-operation with an established oil company.

If the authorities approve the application, it is planned to drill one test well on the field next spring. If this well meets expectations, a plan for development and operation could be submitted in 2002, followed by production at earliest in 2004.

Based on the information that is currently available about the reservoir, Aker Maritime and RWE-DEA envisage developing the field without an offshore platform.

The field lies 85km off the coast of Sogn and Fjordane county in western Norway. Subsea wells could be tied back directly to an onshore processing plant, and the gas transported on to customers on the continent, partly through the existing pipeline system.

According to the agreement between the partners, RWE-DEA will have a 51 per cent share of the licence, and will also be operator. The company is already an operator both in Norway and elsewhere.