By Nerijus Adomaitis
OSLO, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Equinor has receivedgovernment approval for its plan to boost output and extend thelifetime of Troll, Norway's largest oil and gas field, thecompany said on Friday.
The field accounts for about 40 percent of the natural gasreserves on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) and meetsabout 7-8 percent of Europe's consumption. Norway is Europe'ssecond largest gas supplier after Russia.
The approved 7.8 billion Norwegian crowns ($915million)Phase 3 development will help to produce an extra 2.2billion barrels of oil equivalent and extend gas productionbeyond 2050, the company said.
In Phase 3, a gas cap located above the Troll West oilcolumn will be produced at the same time as oil productioncontinues.
"With a break-even of less than $10 per barrel, Troll Phase3 is one of the most profitable and resilient projects ever inour company," said Torger Roed, Equinor's senior vice presidentfor the project.
Equinor and its partners have awarded 950 million crowns incontracts for marine installations and subsea facilities toNexans, Deep Ocean, IKM, Allseas and Marubeni.
In addition, the partnership has awarded contracts worthabout 2 billion crowns for subsea facilities and theconstruction of a new processing module on the Troll A platformto Aker Solutions.
In October, Equinor said it had upgraded its oil-producingTroll B platform to process natural gas for export until thePhase 3 comes on stream in 2021.
"In a few years Troll will only produce from the largeremaining gas reserves. The production horizon for gas fromTroll lasts beyond 2050," it said.
Equinor, the field's operator, has a 30.58 percent stake,state-owned Petoro has 56 percent, Shell 8.1 percent, Total 3.69percent and ConocoPhillips 1.62 percent.
($1 = 8.5238 Norwegian crowns)(Editing by Terje Solsvik and Jason Neely)
