STAVANGER, Norway, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- An oil field on the Norwegian continental shelf reached its 1 billionth barrel and has at least eight years left for production, energy company Statoil said.
Statoil canceled a contract in November for a rig deployed at its Troll field about five months early because of the lack of work. Companies had been shedding rig contracts, which typically have day rates of hundreds of thousands of dollars, as they worked to trim operating expenses. The market has been in recovery mode with higher oil prices and recent data from oilfield services Baker Hughes suggests more work could be coming for energy companies.
Statoil said that, despite sidelining some operations this year, the combined production from the Troll field so far represents about $150 billion.
"After 20 years of production Troll will probably be the highest oil producing field on the Norwegian Continental Shelf for the fourth year in a row," Lars Hoier, a vice president for Troll operations, said in a statement.
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Statoil said production has been relatively flat over the last few years, but the company forecasts another eight to 10 years of production left in the field in the Norwegian waters of the North Sea.
The Norwegian energy company in early December said it was making new strides in the North Sea by moving from planning to development of the region's Mariner oil field. Mariner holds an estimated 250 billion barrels of oil and peak production should be around 55,000 barrels of oil per day once it begins in 2018.
Statoil in its latest earnings release said it was cutting its spending program by 8 percent to $11 billion. Production for the third quarter, meanwhile, was about 5 percent lower than for the same period last year, which the company attributed to regular maintenance and a deferral of some of its gas sales.
Norway is a lead exporter of oil and gas to Europe.
