Who operates the Valhall field?

Valhall is operated by Aker BP ASA, in partnership with INPEX Idemitsu Norge AS.

How much does Valhall produce?

33,025 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 0.8% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 27 of 94 producing fields.

When did Valhall start producing?

First production was reported in 1982, 7 years after discovery well 2/8-6 proved the field in 1975.

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.

Valhall field

Valhall is producing 33,025 barrels of oil equivalent a day — 0.8% of everything the Norwegian Continental Shelf produced in May 2026, ranking 27 of the 94 fields in production.

Production

33,025 boe/d

Share of NCS

0.8%

Operator

Aker BP ASA

First oil

1982

What it produces

In May 2026 the field delivered 33,025 barrels of oil equivalent a day, classified by the directorate as oil — roughly 80% oil and 15% gas by energy content. Output has moved down 19.8% over the past twelve months, and the directorate's profile for the field is late life. The field's best year was 1999, averaging 113,817 boe/d — today it runs at 29% of that.

Since 1982, Valhall has produced roughly 1,049 million barrels of oil equivalent in total. The directorate's estimate of recoverable resources is 1,248 million boe, of which about 84% has now been recovered; 206 million boe remained as of 31.12.2025.

The story of Valhall

Valhall has produced several times what its developers believed the chalk would ever give up — the original plan assumed a couple of decades; the field has passed forty years and been rebuilt around new central facilities. Like Ekofisk it subsides as the chalk compacts, a fact its structures have had to be designed and re-designed around.

Timeline

1975
Proven by exploration well 2/8-6
1982
On stream
1996
Valhall Wp (jacket 4 legs) enters service
1999
Best year to date — 113,817 boe/d
2003
Valhall Flanke Sør (jacket 4 legs) enters service
2004
Valhall Flanke Nord (jacket 4 legs) enters service
2004
Valhall Ip (jacket 4 legs) enters service
2011
Power from shore, fed from Lista
2013
Valhall Ph (jacket 4 legs) enters service
2019
Valhall Flanke Vest (jacket 4 legs) enters service

Production by year, 1982–2026

OilGasNGL/condensateboe/d

Full table, year by year

Year	Oil	Gas	NGL	Total boe/d
1982	1,472	0	35	1,507
1983	16,659	1,746	1,149	19,554
1984	48,865	8,812	4,153	61,829
1985	47,928	8,065	5,393	61,386
1986	43,744	7,403	4,776	55,923
1987	59,939	10,716	5,789	76,444
1988	63,565	12,193	5,748	81,507
1989	73,047	14,504	6,482	94,032
1990	71,628	15,834	6,464	93,926
1991	64,523	14,103	4,287	82,914
1992	69,539	15,942	3,925	89,405
1993	60,948	13,784	3,284	78,015
1994	54,368	11,502	2,851	68,720
1995	60,141	13,571	3,285	76,998
1996	69,338	15,125	3,895	88,357
1997	78,011	16,206	4,329	98,546
1998	89,067	16,627	4,162	109,856
1999	91,511	17,854	4,452	113,817
2000	78,676	15,285	3,809	97,769
2001	75,184	15,205	3,669	94,058
2002	72,043	15,079	3,441	90,563
2003	71,605	10,895	3,397	85,897
2004	82,021	16,630	4,021	102,673
2005	83,231	16,483	4,000	103,714
2006	69,641	13,312	3,621	86,574
2007	58,784	10,484	2,860	72,128
2008	48,308	8,350	2,477	59,135
2009	39,048	6,017	1,922	46,988
2010	36,020	5,830	1,789	43,639
2011	28,301	4,301	1,279	33,881
2012	16,565	2,307	747	19,619
2013	30,473	4,086	1,306	35,865
2014	38,346	6,570	1,979	46,895
2015	41,407	7,519	2,126	51,051
2016	34,321	6,361	1,712	42,394
2017	30,492	5,259	1,465	37,216
2018	32,101	5,293	1,516	38,909
2019	35,257	5,448	1,871	42,576
2020	45,381	7,121	2,941	55,443
2021	41,338	6,966	2,617	50,920
2022	35,181	6,050	2,158	43,389
2023	34,531	5,913	2,144	42,587
2024	34,860	5,947	2,247	43,053
2025	30,608	6,004	1,962	38,575
2026	26,870	5,271	1,712	33,853

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 2/8-6 in 1975. The directorate's wellbore register lists 232 wellbores on Valhall: 8 exploration and 221 development, plus 3 others. The deepest reaches 7,301 metres measured depth. Water depth at the field's installations is 66.7 to 76.8 metres.

How it reaches market

Valhall's production leaves the field by pipeline:

Tie-In (Schematic Route)oil → Ekofisk J

The field has run on power from shore — fed from Lista since 2011 — rather than on gas turbines offshore.

Installations on Valhall

Valhall Flanke NordJacket 4 Legs2004
Valhall Flanke SørJacket 4 Legs2003
Valhall Flanke VestJacket 4 Legs2019
Valhall IpJacket 4 Legs2004
Valhall PhJacket 4 Legs2013
Valhall WpJacket 4 Legs1996

The first of them entered service in 1996. The field also has 3 subsea structures — wellheads and templates on the seabed — which are drawn individually on the map.

Licence partners

Aker BP ASA90.00%
INPEX Idemitsu Norge AS10.00%

The field sits in blocks 2/11, 2/8, under production licences PL 033 B, PL 006 B.

Questions people ask

Who operates the Valhall field?: Valhall is operated by Aker BP ASA, in partnership with INPEX Idemitsu Norge AS.
How much does Valhall produce?: 33,025 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 0.8% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 27 of 94 producing fields.
When did Valhall start producing?: First production was reported in 1982, 7 years after discovery well 2/8-6 proved the field in 1975.

See it live

Valhall 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 North sea

Troll Johan Sverdrup Gullfaks Sør Oseberg Visund Balder Snorre Ekofisk All fields →