Norway's Edvard Grieg Field Starts Production

BASF's oil and gas subsidiary Wintershall said on Monday it had started production at the Edvard Grieg field in the Norwegian North Sea, where it holds a 15 percent share.

"While adding to our total production in Norway, we have helped, alongside the operator and our other partners, to bring an important regional project to production on time and to budget," said Bernd Schrimpf, managing director of Wintershall Norge.

Wintershall, one of Norway's biggest foreign licence holders, aims to bring its own discoveries such as Maria and Skarfjell to production in the coming years, he added.

Sweden's Lundin is the operator of Edvard Grieg, located around 180 kilometres west of Stavanger, with estimated reserves of 187 million barrel oil equivalent (boe), holding a 50 percent stake.

The other partners are Austria's OMV and Norwegian operator Statoil (STO), with 20 and 15 percent respectively.

Oil from the field will be transported via the Grane pipeline to the Sture terminal on the west coast of Norway, while gas will be transported via a separate pipeline system to St. Fergus in Scotland.

Reporting by Vera Eckert