Turnarounds are needed to be able to carry out required maintenance and inspections in order to maintain safe and efficient operations, the company said.
The company added that an important objective of the turnarounds is to make platforms and installations robust in order to improve safety and production regularity and extend their life. It also aims to make improvements to expand the interval between the turnarounds.
The planned replacement of a heat exchanger on the Snohvit LNG plant on the island of Melkoya in northern Norway has been postponed from the summer of 2010 to the second quarter of 2011. A minor turnaround of a much shorter duration will be carried out on Melkoya in the third quarter of 2010.
The turnarounds’ impact on Statoil’s production volume has been taken into consideration in the guiding presented at Statoil’s strategy update on February 11, 2010.
In addition to improving the installations’ robustness, a number of the actions included in this year’s turnarounds are in line with Statoil’s objective of improved recovery of the resources in mature fields. The company claimed that even if the turnarounds lead to production stop and income loss in the periods affected, they contribute to increased production and earnings in the longer term.
