F2a Hanze Field

The Hanze oil field is located in Licence F2a in the northern part of the Dutch North Sea, on the margins of the Step Graben and the Tail End Graben. The field ranks as the largest offshore oil field in Dutch waters. It was discovered by well F2-5 drilled by RWE-Dea in May 1996, following a farm-out of a prospect model generated by Oranje-Nassau Energie (ONE) team.

The well tested oil at a rate of 9,435 bbls/d from an Upper Cretaceous chalk reservoir at a depth of 1,400 m.

The field was named Hanze after the late Middle age trade treaty uniting the major Scandinavian, German and Dutch cities in the Baltic and the North Sea.

The Hanze field was the first ever chalk oil reservoir developed in the Netherlands. The field was developed using an integrated, stand alone Gravity-Based Structure (“GBS”) production platform (F2a-Hanze); the platform sub-structure was installed in August 2000 and the topsides were installed in January 2001. The platform has access for a jack-up drilling rig and has nine well slots available. Drilling started in December 2000; two horizontal production wells and two deviated water injection wells were drilled and completed in August 2001. One injector was later converted to a production well.

The oil is loaded offshore and exported by shuttle tankers. Some gas is also produced, which is treated on the platform and tapped directly into the A6-F3 pipeline onto the NOGAT system and exported to the Den Helder terminal.

Production performance of the field has been very strong since inception and in 2009 the 50 million barrel of produced oil milestone was celebrated.

During 2009, the development of shallow gas bearing sands of Pliocene age (Tertiary) was undertaken and production started in the same year. After treatment and compression on the Hanze platform, the gas is exported to the NOGAT pipeline.

Following the divestment of Petro-Canada NL, Dana now operates the field on behalf of the joint venture that further consists of Noble, Dyas and ONE.