Who operates the Sleipner Vest field?

Sleipner Vest is operated by Equinor Energy AS, in partnership with ORLEN Upstream Norway AS, Vår Energi ASA.

How much does Sleipner Vest produce?

24,932 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 0.6% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 37 of 94 producing fields.

When did Sleipner Vest start producing?

First production was reported in 1996, 22 years after discovery well 15/6-3 proved the field in 1974.

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.

Sleipner Vest field

Sleipner Vest is producing 24,932 barrels of oil equivalent a day — 0.6% of everything the Norwegian Continental Shelf produced in May 2026, ranking 37 of the 94 fields in production.

Production

24,932 boe/d

Share of NCS

0.6%

Operator

Equinor Energy AS

First oil

1996

What it produces

In May 2026 the field delivered 24,932 barrels of oil equivalent a day, classified by the directorate as gas/condensate — roughly 18% oil and 78% gas by energy content. Output has moved down 6.2% over the past twelve months, and the directorate's profile for the field is late life. The field's best year was 1999, averaging 113,099 boe/d — today it runs at 22% of that.

Since 1996, Sleipner Vest has produced roughly 568 million barrels of oil equivalent in total. The directorate's estimate of recoverable resources is 1,348 million boe, of which about 42% has now been recovered; 57 million boe remained as of 31.12.2025.

The story of Sleipner Vest

Sleipner’s place in engineering history was made twice in two years. In August 1991 the first Sleipner A concrete substructure sprang a leak and sank during a ballast test in the Gandsfjord — the loss registered on seismographs and forced a redesign; its replacement was on stream two years later.

From 1996 Sleipner became the site of the world’s first industrial-scale offshore carbon storage: CO₂ separated from the gas stream is injected into the Utsira formation rather than vented, a million tonnes a year, three decades before carbon capture became policy.

Timeline

1974
Proven by exploration well 15/6-3
1991
The first Sleipner A substructure sinks in the Gandsfjord
1993
On stream with the rebuilt platform
1996
World-first offshore CO₂ storage begins
1997
Sleipner B (jacket 4 legs) enters service
1997
Sleipner T (jacket 6 legs) enters service
1999
Best year to date — 113,099 boe/d

Production by year, 1996–2026

OilGasNGL/condensateboe/d

Full table, year by year

Year	Oil	Gas	NGL	Condensate	Total boe/d
1996	0	0	3,557	8,543	12,099
1997	0	7,620	13,449	38,985	60,053
1998	0	25,037	14,903	38,950	78,890
1999	0	53,427	18,677	40,995	113,099
2000	0	0	18,365	38,876	57,241
2001	0	0	23,495	37,059	60,554
2002	0	0	23,117	34,254	57,372
2003	0	0	18,583	30,883	49,466
2004	0	0	15,147	25,530	40,677
2005	0	0	15,756	30,638	46,394
2006	0	0	15,637	27,431	43,068
2007	0	0	15,142	27,550	42,692
2008	0	0	12,223	21,779	34,002
2009	0	0	14,504	21,393	35,896
2010	0	0	13,166	18,040	31,205
2011	0	0	16,719	25,081	41,800
2012	0	0	15,251	22,857	38,109
2013	0	0	13,083	18,205	31,287
2014	11,201	54,607	10,102	3,792	79,702
2015	14,227	70,274	9,071	0	93,572
2016	13,233	62,216	6,695	0	82,144
2017	12,688	59,409	6,683	0	78,780
2018	11,877	54,472	7,442	0	73,792
2019	9,031	48,581	6,865	0	64,476
2020	7,377	39,432	5,830	0	52,639
2021	5,354	31,396	3,609	0	40,359
2022	3,533	22,617	1,061	0	27,209
2023	5,136	32,958	1,538	0	39,632
2024	3,922	23,429	1,263	0	28,615
2025	1,306	7,643	275	0	9,224
2026	4,179	19,131	1,065	0	24,374

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 15/6-3 in 1974. The directorate's wellbore register lists 52 wellbores on Sleipner Vest: 14 exploration and 38 development. The deepest reaches 8,306 metres measured depth. Water depth at the field's installations is 82.5 to 110 metres.

Installations on Sleipner Vest

Sleipner BJacket 4 Legs1997
Sleipner TJacket 6 Legs1997

The first of them entered service in 1997. The field also has 1 subsea structures — wellheads and templates on the seabed — which are drawn individually on the map.

Licence partners

Equinor Energy AS58.35%
ORLEN Upstream Norway AS24.41%
Vår Energi ASA17.24%

The field sits in blocks 15/5, 15/6, 15/9, under production licences PL 1246, PL 029, PL 046.

Questions people ask

Who operates the Sleipner Vest field?: Sleipner Vest is operated by Equinor Energy AS, in partnership with ORLEN Upstream Norway AS, Vår Energi ASA.
How much does Sleipner Vest produce?: 24,932 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 0.6% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 37 of 94 producing fields.
When did Sleipner Vest start producing?: First production was reported in 1996, 22 years after discovery well 15/6-3 proved the field in 1974.

See it live

Sleipner Vest 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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