Who operates the Draugen field?

Draugen is operated by OKEA ASA, in partnership with Petoro AS, M Vest Energy AS.

How much does Draugen produce?

20,533 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 0.5% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 44 of 94 producing fields.

When did Draugen start producing?

First production was reported in 1993, 9 years after discovery well 6407/9-1 proved the field in 1984.

What is the Norwegian Continental Shelf?

The Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) is the seabed area where Norway holds sovereign rights over petroleum resources, covering the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. It holds roughly 90 producing fields, and its output is the largest single source of Norway's export income.

What does NCS Live show?

Every in-service surface installation and subsea structure on the shelf, the offshore pipeline network, field outlines and seabed relief, with live vessel traffic and offshore helicopter flights on top of them. Optional layers add seismic survey activity, cold-water coral, wind and wave forecasts, and a counter for the value each field is producing today.

Where does the data come from?

Infrastructure, fields and production come from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (Sokkeldirektoratet) FactPages under the NLOD licence. Vessel positions are AIS from BarentsWatch and Kystverket. Helicopter movements are derived from Avinor flight data. Coral observations come from the Institute of Marine Research and MAREANO, and export prices from Statistics Norway (SSB).

Is the vessel traffic real time?

Yes. Tankers and offshore support vessels are drawn from live AIS positions and refreshed continuously, with speed, course and self-reported destination. Helicopter positions are dead-reckoned estimates between known departures and arrivals, not surveillance.

Are the pipeline flows measured?

No. Pipeline thickness and the travelling flow animation are estimates, derived by accumulating monthly field production through the pipeline network. They are not metered throughput, and thickness is not pipe diameter.

Can I see how the shelf was built out?

Yes. The time machine replays the shelf from 1971, the year Ekofisk started producing, to today. Installations and pipelines appear in the year they entered service, with total production and the number of producing fields for each year.

Is NCS Live free to use?

Yes, free and with no account. It is a public visualisation of open data, built and designed by Smpl and Melvær&Co in Norway.

Draugen field

Draugen is producing 20,533 barrels of oil equivalent a day — 0.5% of everything the Norwegian Continental Shelf produced in May 2026, ranking 44 of the 94 fields in production.

Production

20,533 boe/d

Share of NCS

0.5%

Operator

OKEA ASA

First oil

1993

What it produces

In May 2026 the field delivered 20,533 barrels of oil equivalent a day, classified by the directorate as oil — roughly 59% oil and 30% gas by energy content. Output has moved down 1.7% over the past twelve months, and the directorate's profile for the field is mature. The field's best year was 2001, averaging 221,722 boe/d — today it runs at 9% of that.

Since 1993, Draugen has produced roughly 974 million barrels of oil equivalent in total. The directorate's estimate of recoverable resources is 1,029 million boe, of which about 95% has now been recovered; 57 million boe remained as of 31.12.2025.

The story of Draugen

Draugen was the first field on stream north of the 62nd parallel — the political line that long held development out of the Norwegian Sea — and it did so from a single slender concrete monotower, one leg where its contemporaries had four.

Timeline

1984
Proven by exploration well 6407/9-1
1993
First field on stream north of 62°N
2001
Best year to date — 221,722 boe/d
2012
Draugen Fsl (loading system) enters service

Production by year, 1993–2026

OilGasNGL/condensateboe/d

Full table, year by year

Year	Oil	Gas	NGL	Total boe/d
1993	2,122	0	0	2,122
1994	66,984	0	0	66,984
1995	120,129	0	0	120,129
1996	145,123	0	0	145,123
1997	180,111	0	0	180,111
1998	192,907	0	0	192,907
1999	209,190	0	0	209,190
2000	201,833	352	592	202,778
2001	204,368	4,714	12,641	221,722
2002	190,719	4,123	11,055	205,898
2003	128,113	2,864	8,523	139,500
2004	134,175	3,389	9,561	147,124
2005	103,712	2,797	7,720	114,229
2006	78,400	2,059	5,738	86,195
2007	71,067	1,699	4,859	77,625
2008	69,434	1,588	4,684	75,705
2009	58,565	1,292	4,089	63,945
2010	41,508	786	2,591	44,885
2011	37,442	721	2,455	40,618
2012	34,792	646	2,276	37,713
2013	25,314	442	1,555	27,311
2014	31,111	513	1,918	33,541
2015	29,660	391	1,703	31,755
2016	21,947	236	1,122	23,305
2017	23,073	205	1,134	24,412
2018	19,982	131	870	20,983
2019	19,477	83	816	20,376
2020	16,938	64	428	17,429
2021	15,897	0	0	15,897
2022	15,183	0	0	15,183
2023	13,475	890	675	15,041
2024	14,181	3,814	2,084	20,078
2025	11,959	5,417	2,199	19,574
2026	11,734	5,964	2,316	20,013

Average daily rates per calendar year, from Sokkeldirektoratet's monthly production figures. The final year is the average through May 2026.

Discovery and drilling

The field was proven by exploration well 6407/9-1 in 1984. The directorate's wellbore register lists 46 wellbores on Draugen: 10 exploration and 36 development. The deepest reaches 4,060 metres measured depth. Water depth at the field's installations is 243 to 296 metres.

How it reaches market

Draugen's production leaves the field by pipeline:

Draugen Gasseksportgas → Draugen T

Installations on Draugen

DraugenCondeep Monoshaft1993
Draugen FslLoading System2012

The first of them entered service in 1993. The field also has 19 subsea structures — wellheads and templates on the seabed — which are drawn individually on the map.

Licence partners

Petoro AS47.88%
OKEA ASA44.56%
M Vest Energy AS7.56%

The field sits in blocks 6407/12, 6407/8, 6407/9, under production licences PL 093 C, PL 176, PL 158, PL 093, PL 093 B.

Questions people ask

Who operates the Draugen field?: Draugen is operated by OKEA ASA, in partnership with Petoro AS, M Vest Energy AS.
How much does Draugen produce?: 20,533 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 0.5% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 44 of 94 producing fields.
When did Draugen start producing?: First production was reported in 1993, 9 years after discovery well 6407/9-1 proved the field in 1984.

See it live

Draugen is drawn on the NCS Live map with its outline, its pipelines and the vessels working it in real time — and på norsk. The directorate's own record is on the SODIR FactPages.

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