Who operates the Johan Sverdrup field?

Johan Sverdrup is operated by Equinor Energy AS, in partnership with Aker BP ASA, Petoro AS, TotalEnergies EP Norge AS.

How much does Johan Sverdrup produce?

702,620 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 16.5% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 2 of 94 producing fields.

When did Johan Sverdrup start producing?

First production was reported in 2019, 9 years after discovery well 16/2-6 proved the field in 2010.

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.

Johan Sverdrup field

Johan Sverdrup is producing 702,620 barrels of oil equivalent a day — 16.5% of everything the Norwegian Continental Shelf produced in May 2026, ranking 2 of the 94 fields in production.

Production

702,620 boe/d

Share of NCS

16.5%

Operator

Equinor Energy AS

First oil

2019

What it produces

In May 2026 the field delivered 702,620 barrels of oil equivalent a day, classified by the directorate as oil — almost entirely oil. Output has moved down 5.9% over the past twelve months, and the directorate's profile for the field is plateau. The field's best year was 2024, averaging 751,697 boe/d — today it runs at 93% of that.

Since 2019, Johan Sverdrup has produced roughly 1,501 million barrels of oil equivalent in total. The directorate's estimate of recoverable resources is 2,655 million boe, of which about 57% has now been recovered; 1,262 million boe remained as of 31.12.2025.

The story of Johan Sverdrup

Johan Sverdrup is the largest discovery made on the Norwegian shelf in a generation — found in 2010–2011 in an area that had been explored for forty years and written off. It came on stream in October 2019, ahead of schedule and under budget, and by 2023 it briefly overtook Troll as the shelf’s largest producer.

The field runs entirely on power from shore, giving it some of the lowest production emissions per barrel anywhere, and is planned to produce for decades.

Timeline

2010
Discovered — the Avaldsnes/Aldous wells
2018
Johan Sverdrup Dp (jacket 8 legs) enters service
2019
On stream, ahead of schedule
2022
Phase 2 doubles processing capacity
2024
Best year to date — 751,697 boe/d

Production by year, 2019–2026

OilGasNGL/condensateboe/d

Full table, year by year

Year	Oil	Gas	NGL	Total boe/d
2019	64,172	2,310	2,341	68,823
2020	420,453	14,456	13,759	448,668
2021	510,711	17,441	15,115	543,267
2022	503,385	17,936	10,399	531,720
2023	711,532	23,794	14,137	749,462
2024	714,269	23,010	14,419	751,697
2025	690,438	23,870	13,305	727,613
2026	658,850	22,805	12,499	694,154

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 16/2-6 in 2010. The directorate's wellbore register lists 126 wellbores on Johan Sverdrup: 32 exploration and 86 development, plus 8 others. The deepest reaches 6,299 metres measured depth. Water depth at the field's installations is 109 to 128 metres.

How it reaches market

Johan Sverdrup's production leaves the field by pipeline:

Johan Sverdrup Oljerøroil → Mongstad
Johan Sverdrup Gassrørgas → Johan Sverdrup Statpipe Plem

The field has run on power from shore — fed from Kårstø since 2019 — rather than on gas turbines offshore.

Installations on Johan Sverdrup

Johan Sverdrup DpJacket 8 Legs2018
Johan Sverdrup LqJacket 4 Legs2019
Johan Sverdrup P1Jacket 8 Legs2019
Johan Sverdrup P2Jacket 8 Legs2022
Johan Sverdrup RpJacket 8 Legs2019

The first of them entered service in 2018. The field also has 11 subsea structures — wellheads and templates on the seabed — which are drawn individually on the map.

Licence partners

Equinor Energy AS42.63%
Aker BP ASA31.57%
Petoro AS17.36%
TotalEnergies EP Norge AS8.44%

The field sits in blocks 16/2, 16/3, 16/5, under production licences PL 265, PL 501, PL 501 B, PL 502.

Questions people ask

Who operates the Johan Sverdrup field?: Johan Sverdrup is operated by Equinor Energy AS, in partnership with Aker BP ASA, Petoro AS, TotalEnergies EP Norge AS.
How much does Johan Sverdrup produce?: 702,620 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 16.5% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 2 of 94 producing fields.
When did Johan Sverdrup start producing?: First production was reported in 2019, 9 years after discovery well 16/2-6 proved the field in 2010.

See it live

Johan Sverdrup 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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