Statoil plans to start production at a new gas reservoir in the Barents Sea around 2020 to keep up LNG production from its Snoehvit Field, a company executive said on April 19.

The Askeladd reservoir will be tied into the Snoehvit field gas installations, which feed Europe’s only plant for making and exporting LNG, said Margareth Oevrum, executive vice president for technology, projects and drilling.

The Snoehvit development currently produces gas from the Albatross and Snoehvit reservoirs. Statoil had initially estimated the third reservoir would launch production in 2014 or 2015.

“To secure future volumes at Snoehvit, we’re working to develop Askeladd. Our current projections show this will become important in 2020-2021,” Oevrum told an energy conference.

“We’ve tried to identify the optimal time to start, and to find the right development concept. At the moment it looks like we’ll have five subsea wells and a subsea production system that ties them to Snoehvit,” she said.

Separately, Statoil is close to starting production from two more wells at the existing reservoirs, the company added.

The Snoehvit Field produced almost 6 Bcm of gas in 2015, the highest annual output since its startup in 2007.

Natural gas is converted to liquid form at an onshore LNG plant near Hammerfest and exported by tankers.

Other partners in the Snoehvit Field include Norway’s state-owned Petoro, Total and Engie, and DEA Norge.

At the conference, Oevrum also presented a new set of technologies, known as Cap-X, designed to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of subsea developments.

“With Cap-X, Statoil is one step closer to a plug and play solution on the seabed,” she said.