Statoil cuts 95,000 barrels per day at North Sea oil and gas field for five months

Norway’s state-controlled oil company Statoil ASA on Friday said it was cutting production at its Kvitebjoern field by the equivalent of 95,000 barrels of oil per day for the next five months as part of a reservoir management and drilling program.

The company said it decided to cut production in half at the North Sea field ”to enable sound reservoir management and safe drilling operations for the wells remaining to be drilled.”

A Statoil news release said the company it would seek to boost production at other fields for the five months to compensate, and that the impact on total production for all of 2007 would work out to reduction of about 15,000 barrels per day.

The field normally produces 195,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, both as at crude oil and as natural gas. Oil equivalents measures the energy content rather than the volume of oil and gas.

It said the decision to reduce production was based on reservoir conditions, and would enable to company’s current drilling of new wells at the field to continue and would ensure future production levels.

Statoil, based in the western port of Stavanger, is the key producer on the offshore fields that make Norway the world’s third largest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia and Russia.

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