The Operator and the license partnership have set an extremely high ambition for recovery from the Johan Sverdrup field, even before a barrel of oil has been produced. How is this possible? This paper describes the characteristics of the reservoir, as well as early assessments and investments for improved oil recovery (IOR) to ensure flexibility. In addition, data acquisition, reservoir monitoring, new technologies and digitalisation, as well as new ways of working are addressed. This will be the key enablers for a recovery of more than 70% of the field’s oil resources. Johan Sverdrup is the third largest oil field on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) with a recoverable volume range of 2,2 to 3,2 billion b.o.e. The reservoir is characterized by excellent reservoir properties with a strongly undersaturated oil. The primary drainage strategy is water flooding, including re-injection of all produced water, supplemented by water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection at the end of the oil production plateau. The field came on stream in October 2019. Going back to the early stages of the Johan Sverdrup field development, it was obvious from the start that this would be an independent development solution with a long lifetime. Given the excellent reservoir, this was considered as a unique opportunity to plan for a high resource exploitation, and make sure that future business opportunities in this context could be utilized in a technical and economically attractive way. A very early screening was conducted to investigate which IOR measures should be further matured. With subsurface evaluations as the base, this maturation also included assessments on technical feasibility and potential implications for development solutions. The objective was to ensure sufficient flexibility in early field design. It also implied that the Johan Sverdrup license had to consider pre-investments prior to any implementation decision. Data acquisition and reservoir monitoring strategies were also started early on, which e.g. led to a full field Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) decision, with installation starting summer 2019. This gives a baseline for parts of the field before production start, and when completed in 2020 it will be the world’s largest fiber based PRM system. Fiber optics are also installed in the wells. In addition, a dedicated observation well is part of the development plan. The idea is that PRM and fiber data results, in addition to repeated logging in the observation well, will be key information to evaluate business cases for future IOR or new technology measures. Digitalisation has also been a key aspect of this, and several subsurface-focused digitalisation initiatives have been implemented during the field development, giving the operator the opportunity to implement new ways of working and enabling new ways of cooperation in the partnership as data and applications are shared within the owner group in a digital setting. The overall objective of digitalisation in this context is to further optimize the analysis and management of the Johan Sverdrup reservoir – and hence value of the Johan Sverdrup field – for the license owners.

The second phase of Johan Sverdrup came on stream in December 2022. This paper focuses on the execution of Johan Sverdrup phase 2 and describes the assessments and investments for improved oil recovery (IOR) from one of the largest oil fields in Norway. The Johan Sverdrup field development has been called Equinor's ‘digital flagship’, and this paper includes the proof of concept for the digital initiatives after more than three years of operation. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic Johan Sverdrup phase 2 has been able to deliver on schedule, under budget, and with an excellent safety record. The paper includes experiences from the concept development and engineering phase to the global contracting strategy, through the construction on multiple building sites in Norway and globally, and until the end of the completion phase offshore Norway. Johan Sverdrup is the third largest oil field on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), and with recoverable reserves estimated at 2.7 billion barrels of oil equivalents, has the resources to be a North Sea Giant. Start-up of the Johan Sverdrup phase 2 extends and accelerates oil and gas production from the NCS for another five decades. This paper aims to highlight what it took to make Johan Sverdrup a true North Sea Giant, fit for the 21st century: a safe and successful execution of a mega-project, with next-generation facilities adapted to a more digital way of working, with an ambition to profitably recover more than 70% of the resources, while limiting carbon emissions from production to a minimum. In many ways the Johan Sverdrup development has set a new standard for project execution in Equinor. The impact of different variables made during the execution of the project, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, market effects, procurement strategies, value improvement initiatives, execution performance and reservoir characteristics is addressed, as well as describing assessments and investments for improved oil recovery (IOR). Data acquisition, Permanent Reservoir Monitoring (PRM), fibre-optic monitoring of wells, innovative technologies, and digitalization, as well as new ways of working are included. Equinor´s digital strategy was established in 2017, and Johan Sverdrup was highlighted as a digital flagship at that time and a frontrunner in applying digital solutions to improve safety and efficiency from the development to the operational phase. What has been implemented so far together with experiences will be shared.