From the North Sea (NT): The small TUNE field in the Norwegian sector has gained a last-minute reprieve from abandonment.

The subsea tieback to Oseberg was due to be closed down this year, but the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway has now given Statoil permission to keep production going until late 2020, when the licence runs out.

An environmental impact study for decommissioning was issued in 2011, but more recently there have been signs of efforts being made to prolong production. Various studies including a reduction in the arrival pressure of the hydrocarbons at the host Oseberg D platform have been carried out, according to the NPD, and the light well intervention vessel Island Frontier was booked to work on the field this summer.

The 12-year design life of the pipelines and risers expires this year, so Statoil has had to satisfy the PSA of the integrity of these items over the next eight years. Tune consists of five subsea wells plus a single-well satellite. In the first nine months, it produced 530b/d of oil and 8mcm/d of gas.

The PERTH (30/17) prospect in the UK North Sea, in the general vicinity of the big Scott complex, was penciled as an fpso development a few years back when Deo Petroleum was in charge.

After the Deo takeover by Parkmead - run by the former Dana Petroleum team, lead by Tom Cross, who departed after it was acquired by KNOC - it went back onto the drawing board.

Now having been grouped with the nearby Dolphin and Lowlander finds, Parkmead has called it ‘one of the largest undeveloped oil projects in the North Sea’. Parkmead is reticent to say much of anything else, but it is likely on hold while the oil price hovers just below $70/bbl.

Some small projects may still go ahead, though, likely with the hope that the oil price will firm up by the time production commences. Iona Energy has said it has sorted out its export route with CNR for its ORLANDO (31/14) tieback which will likely be going somewhere at Ninian.

First oil has been penciled in for late 2016, so plenty of time for the oil price to recover.

From the North Sea (NT): The JOHAN SVERDRUP (31/16) licence group has agreed to recommend Statoil as operator for all phases of development and production of the giant field.

This is not a great surprise given that across the four licences on which the field lies, Statoil has the largest stake, is the most experienced of the licensees - the others are Lundin, Maersk, Det norske oljeselskap and Petoro - and is Norway’s state oil company.

But there has been some speculation that Lundin, which discovered Sverdrup, would make a bid to become operator.

Statoil, which has acted as operator in the planning phase, says it will cooperate closely with its partners and is aiming at recovering 70% of reserves, which according to consultant Wood Mackenzie amount to 2.4bboe. The recommendation will be included in the unit operating agreement to be submitted, along with the plan for development and operation, in February.

Nexans is to deliver a direct electric heating (DEH) system for Wintershall’s MARIA (31/14) project in Norway and an upgrade to the system for Kristin. A DEH dynamic riser will link the Kristin production semi with a subsea termination unit that will provide cores for both projects.

Technip will handle SURF and subsea construction for Statoil’s GULLFAKS RIMFAKSDALEN project. The scope includes fabrication and installation of 9.5km of pipe-in-pipe with a 13% chrome flowline and the 8.5km umbilical.

There will also be the installation of a 280t template, 110t manifold plus three spools. The work is scheduled for 2015 and 2016 with pipelay by Apache II.

JDR is to supply a 1.55km steel tubed umbilical to Eni for its deepwater ABO (31/17) project, offshore Nigeria. This is being called a ‘fast track’ delivery in Q1 2015. Eni gets some local content value on this deal as JDR will train a local team for the integration, testing, installation and commissioning programme.

From Houston (BN): Chevron plans to drill up to 11 wells at its DAWN MARIE prospect in Garden Banks 954-955-998 with the first well in the 10-year programme targeted for early in the new year.

Dawn Marie is in 1,544m about 400km south-southwest of New Orleans. Regulatory documents estimate total drilling time for the wells at 2,000 days between 2015 and 2024.

This prospect lies about 40km north of BP’s Kaskida (28/15) discovery in the so-called Lower Tertiary trend. The geology is interesting, marked by irregular seafloor and steep slopes on the southern edge of the Bernard Basin, just northwest of the Calcasieu Basin. The top of the salt canopy varies from 150m to more than 1,500m below mudline.

Also, the number of Gulf of Mexico operators signed up for seismic contractor CGG’s StagSeis multi-client geophysical imaging system has risen to eight.

StagSeis is focused on subsalt areas of Garden Banks, Keathley Canyon, Walker Ridge and Green Canyon. CGG said its surveys will be involved in operator decision-making ahead of lease sales through 2020.

Signees have not been named, but CGG said a single client had added 871 blocks to the list to be surveyed so it had to be one of the large operators, perhaps BP, Shell, Chevron or Anadarko. CGG is currently in takeover talks with Technip.

Offshore