Who operates the Ekofisk field?

Ekofisk is operated by ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS, in partnership with TotalEnergies EP Norge AS, Vår Energi ASA, DNO Norge AS and others.

How much does Ekofisk produce?

52,826 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 1.2% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 18 of 94 producing fields.

When did Ekofisk start producing?

First production was reported in 1971, 2 years after discovery well 2/4-2 proved the field in 1969.

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.

Ekofisk field

Ekofisk is producing 52,826 barrels of oil equivalent a day — 1.2% of everything the Norwegian Continental Shelf produced in May 2026, ranking 18 of the 94 fields in production.

Production

52,826 boe/d

Share of NCS

1.2%

Operator

ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS

First oil

1971

What it produces

In May 2026 the field delivered 52,826 barrels of oil equivalent a day, classified by the directorate as oil — roughly 85% oil and 13% gas by energy content. Output has moved down 17.4% over the past twelve months, and the directorate's profile for the field is late life. The field's best year was 2002, averaging 354,667 boe/d — today it runs at 15% of that.

Since 1971, Ekofisk has produced roughly 4,331 million barrels of oil equivalent in total. The directorate's estimate of recoverable resources is 4,454 million boe, of which about 97% has now been recovered; 131 million boe remained as of 31.12.2025.

The story of Ekofisk

Ekofisk is where the Norwegian oil age began. Phillips Petroleum found it with the drilling rig Ocean Viking in the autumn of 1969, after a campaign that had been on the point of being abandoned, and the first oil was produced in June 1971 — the first commercial production on the Norwegian shelf.

Its history carries two of the industry’s formative accidents: the Bravo blowout of April 1977, the North Sea’s first major well control failure, and the discovery that the chalk reservoir was compacting — the seabed sank so far that in 1987 the steel platforms were jacked up six metres in one of the great engineering operations of the era. The field is still producing more than fifty years after first oil.

Timeline

1969
Discovered by Phillips Petroleum with Ocean Viking
1971
First oil — the first production on the Norwegian shelf
1973
Ekofisk Bs3 (jacket tripod) enters service
1974
Ekofisk B (jacket 12 legs) enters service
1977
The Bravo blowout
1986
Ekofisk K (jacket 8 legs) enters service
1987
Platforms jacked up six metres against seabed subsidence
1996
Ekofisk X (jacket 4 legs) enters service
1996
Ekofisk X-Bs (jacket tripod) enters service
1998
Ekofisk J (jacket 8 legs) enters service
2002
Best year to date — 354,667 boe/d
2005
Ekofisk M (jacket 4 legs) enters service
2005
Ekofisk M-Bs (jacket tripod) enters service
2013
Ekofisk L-Bs (jacket 4 legs) enters service
2013
Ekofisk Z (jacket 4 legs) enters service
2014
Ekofisk L (jacket 4 legs) enters service

Production by year, 1971–2026

OilGasNGL/condensateboe/d

Full table, year by year

Year	Oil	Gas	NGL	Total boe/d
1971	6,154	0	0	6,154
1972	33,118	0	0	33,118
1973	32,217	0	0	32,217
1974	34,710	0	0	34,710
1975	189,482	0	0	189,482
1976	278,870	0	0	278,870
1977	273,801	24,837	0	298,638
1978	267,492	84,980	0	352,472
1979	223,655	99,248	9,942	332,844
1980	189,021	110,929	19,221	319,171
1981	154,860	111,956	17,957	284,772
1982	140,057	109,310	18,838	268,205
1983	139,748	102,067	22,006	263,820
1984	127,501	113,347	20,624	261,472
1985	107,424	100,149	20,556	228,128
1986	80,941	45,721	15,798	142,459
1987	68,875	66,845	12,713	148,433
1988	92,167	64,890	18,779	175,836
1989	114,389	86,895	19,756	221,041
1990	129,166	89,930	18,642	237,737
1991	148,216	83,397	18,237	249,849
1992	154,605	100,774	16,583	271,963
1993	151,077	80,462	14,772	246,311
1994	174,072	81,827	14,561	270,460
1995	221,053	89,203	15,845	326,100
1996	231,075	90,102	15,384	336,562
1997	245,943	86,045	14,118	346,106
1998	250,467	62,448	10,787	323,701
1999	245,981	47,990	8,344	302,316
2000	286,463	51,812	9,428	347,703
2001	285,455	49,590	9,008	344,054
2002	296,973	47,272	10,422	354,667
2003	295,935	46,332	10,736	353,003
2004	283,929	44,315	10,690	338,934
2005	272,594	43,620	10,560	326,773
2006	272,111	45,458	10,950	328,518
2007	227,175	39,386	9,032	275,592
2008	209,477	37,056	9,075	255,608
2009	193,820	32,791	7,852	234,462
2010	161,775	27,384	6,397	195,555
2011	144,952	22,360	5,057	172,368
2012	130,183	18,948	4,657	153,786
2013	110,159	14,280	3,416	127,856
2014	116,946	16,624	3,752	137,321
2015	111,660	16,873	3,423	131,956
2016	105,269	15,221	3,033	123,523
2017	108,524	16,096	3,275	127,895
2018	100,288	14,904	3,276	118,468
2019	96,471	14,809	3,528	114,808
2020	87,288	12,686	4,120	104,094
2021	81,409	11,319	3,242	95,969
2022	71,263	9,976	2,837	84,075
2023	67,412	9,735	2,444	79,591
2024	59,175	7,800	1,877	68,851
2025	49,143	7,467	1,327	57,937
2026	45,375	6,895	1,116	53,386

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 2/4-2 in 1969. The directorate's wellbore register lists 508 wellbores on Ekofisk: 7 exploration and 474 development, plus 27 others. The deepest reaches 7,775 metres measured depth. Water depth at the field's installations is 72 to 79 metres.

How it reaches market

Ekofisk's production leaves the field by pipeline:

Norpipe Oljeledningoil → 37/4-Bp
Norpipe Gassledninggas → Norpipe Y

Installations on Ekofisk

Ekofisk BJacket 12 Legs1974
Ekofisk Bs3Jacket Tripod1973
Ekofisk JJacket 8 Legs1998
Ekofisk KJacket 8 Legs1986
Ekofisk LJacket 4 Legs2014
Ekofisk L-BsJacket 4 Legs2013
Ekofisk MJacket 4 Legs2005
Ekofisk M-BsJacket Tripod2005
Ekofisk XJacket 4 Legs1996
Ekofisk X-BsJacket Tripod1996
Ekofisk ZJacket 4 Legs2013

The first of them entered service in 1973. The field also has 4 subsea structures — wellheads and templates on the seabed — which are drawn individually on the map.

Licence partners

TotalEnergies EP Norge AS39.90%
ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS35.11%
Vår Energi ASA12.39%
DNO Norge AS7.60%
Petoro AS5.00%

The field sits in block 2/4, under production licence PL 018.

Questions people ask

Who operates the Ekofisk field?: Ekofisk is operated by ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS, in partnership with TotalEnergies EP Norge AS, Vår Energi ASA, DNO Norge AS and others.
How much does Ekofisk produce?: 52,826 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 1.2% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 18 of 94 producing fields.
When did Ekofisk start producing?: First production was reported in 1971, 2 years after discovery well 2/4-2 proved the field in 1969.

See it live

Ekofisk 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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