OREANDA-NEWS. January 16, 2013. OMV announces its support for the final investment decision of the Aasta Hansteen gas field development in the Northern Norwegian Sea. This involves a floating spar platform which will be the largest in the world and the first spar for Norway. With this step, OMV demonstrates growth of its Exploration and Production business, and further shows the commitment to establish Norway as a core country in its portfolio.

The spar platform will be deployed by the Aasta Hansteen Joint Venture with Statoil (75%) as operator, ConocoPhillips (10%) and OMV (15%) as partners. It is going to be the first spar on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, the largest in the world and the first to have storage tanks for condensate. It has a total height of more than 200 m, a hull diameter of 50 m and a condensate storage capacity of 160,000 barrels.

Production from the Aasta Hansteen field is expected to commence during 2017.

Jaap Huijskes, OMV Executive Board Member responsible for Exploration and Production: “We are committed to this project. It is designed as a future hub and it will therefore unlock great potential in the region. Together with the recently acquired stakes in two other development projects, Zidane and Edvard Grieg, Norway will add substantially to OMV’s production growth.”

OMV will also participate in the investment of a new 36 inch, 480 km gas pipeline and an upgrade of the Nyhamna gas processing plant. These two elements together constitute the Norwegian Sea Gas Infrastructure (NSGI) project in which OMV holds a share of 9.073%. “The NSGI project offers the necessary infrastructure to transport the gas from the Aasta Hansteen field to the relevant markets in Europe”, says Hans-Peter Floren, OMV Executive Board Member responsible for Gas and Power.