Statoil ASA (STO)

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Statoil awards compression contract to Schlumberger unit


OSLO, April 12 (Reuters) - Norwegian energy company Statoil has contracted Framo Engineering, a unit of Schlumberger , to design and build one of the world's first subsea gas-compression plants for the Gullfaks field off Norway, Statoil said on Thursday.

The contract is for nearly 900 million crowns ($155 million), the company said.

"This may increase the production from the field by three billion cubic metres of gas, enabling Gullfaks to sustain plateau production for gas export," Jannicke Nilsson, Statoil's western North Sea chief, said in a statement.

Statoil and partner Petoro, which represents the Norwegian state, settled last year on a subsea solution for gas compression to boost reservoir pressure some 15 kilometres from the Gullfaks C platform.

The company said current recovery rate of petroleum production in the area is 62 percent. Subsea compression could help boost that to 74 percent.

Production at Gullfaks, which started in 1986, peaked in 1994 at more than 30 million cubic metres of oil equivalent and fell below 5 billion cubic metres in 2010, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.

Statoil is the operator with a 70 percent interest, with Petoro claiming the rest. ($1 = 5.8018 Norwegian crowns)

(Reporting by Walter Gibbs; editing by James Jukwey)

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Keywords: STATOIL/