Who operates the Goliat field?

Goliat is operated by Vår Energi ASA, in partnership with Equinor Energy AS.

How much does Goliat produce?

18,525 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 0.4% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 47 of 94 producing fields.

When did Goliat start producing?

First production was reported in 2016, 16 years after discovery well 7122/7-1 proved the field in 2000.

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.

Goliat field

Goliat is producing 18,525 barrels of oil equivalent a day — 0.4% of everything the Norwegian Continental Shelf produced in May 2026, ranking 47 of the 94 fields in production.

Production

18,525 boe/d

Share of NCS

0.4%

Operator

Vår Energi ASA

First oil

2016

What it produces

In May 2026 the field delivered 18,525 barrels of oil equivalent a day, classified by the directorate as oil — almost entirely oil. Output has moved up 2.3% over the past twelve months, and the directorate's profile for the field is mature. The field's best year was 2018, averaging 64,111 boe/d — today it runs at 29% of that.

Since 2016, Goliat has produced roughly 140 million barrels of oil equivalent in total. The directorate's estimate of recoverable resources is 202 million boe, of which about 69% has now been recovered; 65 million boe remained as of 31.12.2025.

The story of Goliat

Goliat was the first oil field developed in the Barents Sea, produced from a circular FPSO built to face Arctic weather from every direction at once, and partly powered from shore through one of the longest subsea power cables of its kind.

Timeline

2000
Proven by exploration well 7122/7-1
2016
First oil field on stream in the Barents Sea
2018
Best year to date — 64,111 boe/d

Production by year, 2016–2026

Oilboe/d

Full table, year by year

Year	Oil	Total boe/d
2016	50,700	50,700
2017	43,306	43,306
2018	64,111	64,111
2019	40,647	40,647
2020	39,760	39,760
2021	34,860	34,860
2022	32,476	32,476
2023	25,705	25,705
2024	21,699	21,699
2025	22,053	22,053
2026	19,285	19,285

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 7122/7-1 in 2000. The directorate's wellbore register lists 55 wellbores on Goliat: 7 exploration and 41 development, plus 7 others. The deepest reaches 5,226 metres measured depth. Water depth at the field's installations is 323 to 394 metres.

How it reaches market

No export pipeline is registered from Goliat's own installations — its production is either offloaded to shuttle tankers or routed through a host facility on a neighbouring field.

The field has run on power from shore — fed from Melkøya since 2016 — rather than on gas turbines offshore.

Installations on Goliat

Goliat FpsoFpso2016
HyggevannetLandfall2016

The first of them entered service in 2016. The field also has 8 subsea structures — wellheads and templates on the seabed — which are drawn individually on the map.

Licence partners

Vår Energi ASA65.00%
Equinor Energy AS35.00%

The field sits in blocks 7122/10, 7122/11, 7122/7, 7122/8, under production licences PL 229, PL 229 B.

Questions people ask

Who operates the Goliat field?: Goliat is operated by Vår Energi ASA, in partnership with Equinor Energy AS.
How much does Goliat produce?: 18,525 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 0.4% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 47 of 94 producing fields.
When did Goliat start producing?: First production was reported in 2016, 16 years after discovery well 7122/7-1 proved the field in 2000.

See it live

Goliat 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.

Other fields in the Barents sea

Johan Castberg Snøhvit All fields →