Gullfaks licensees have received permission to start up facilities on the Rutil deposit on Gullfaks South and began production, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said in a news release.

Rutil is a gas-filled structure on Statoil-operated Gullfaks South, located in the Tampen area in the North Sea.

Rutil will be developed with a standard subsea template with four well slots (subsea template Q) with two gas production wells, NPD said in the release. The subsea template is tied-in to the existing infrastructure on the Gullfaks A facility for processing and export.

The operator estimates in-place volumes are 17.9 billion standard cubic meters of gas and 2 million cubic meters of condensate, the release said. Expected recoverable reserves are 11.9 million standard oil equivalents.

Investment costs are just under NOK 3.8 billion, below the PDO estimate of NOK 4.863 billion.

Production is scheduled to start in August/September 2016, several months earlier than the originally planned December 2016, according to the NPD.