Gjøa oilfield is an oilfield in the Norwegian section of the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

. It lies about 70 kilometres (43.5 mi) off the Troll field.

The Gjøa reserves are estimated to be about 40 billion cubic metres of natural gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

 and 83 Moilbbl of oil and condensate

Natural gas condensate

Natural-gas condensate is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields....

.

The oil field was discovered in 1989 and the development was announced in December 2006. It is developed by the consortium of Statoil

Statoil

Statoil ASA is a Norwegian petroleum company established in 1972. It merged with Norsk Hydro in 2007 and was known as StatoilHydro until 2009, when the name was changed back to Statoil ASA. The brand Statoil was retained as a chain of fuel stations owned by StatoilHydro...

, GDF Suez

GDF Suez

GDF Suez S.A. is a French multinational energy company which operates in the fields of electricity generation and distribution, natural gas and renewable energy. The world's largest utility after taking control of Britain's International Power, the company was initially formed by the merger of Gaz...

, Petoro

Petoro

Petoro, a company wholly owned by the state of Norway, manages Norway's portfolio of exploration and production licenses for petroleum and natural gas on the Norwegian continental shelf. This portfolio is collectively called State's Direct Financial Interest . The company also has a control...

, Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

 and RWE Dea. During the development phase, the operator of the field is Statoil. When production begins GDF Suez will take over the operatorship. The field will become on stream in 2010, and it will reach plateau production in 2011. The total investment is about 27 billion Norwegian krone

Norwegian krone

The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...

s.

Produced gas is transported through the FLAGS pipeline

FLAGS

The FLAGS pipeline is a natural gas pipeline in the North Sea which is used to transport liquids and associated gas from the following fields:* Cormorant A* North Cormorant* North West Hutton...

 to the St Fergus Gas Plant in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Gjøa is connected to the FLAGS pipeline through the 130 kilometres (80.8 mi) 28 inches (711.2 mm) link built by Saipem

Saipem

Saipem S.p.A. is an Italian oil and gas industry contractor. It is a subsidiary of Italian energy company Eni, which owns approximately 43% of Saipem's shares. Saipem has contracted for designing and constructing several pipelines, including Blue Stream, Greenstream, Nord Stream and South...

. The linking pipeline was laid by the Castoro Sei

Castoro Sei

The Castoro Sei is a column stabilized semi-submersible pipelay vessel. She has an overall length of , a width of and a operating draught of . The Castoro Sei is equipped with 2 rotating gantry cranes 134 tonnes capacity and three 110 tonne pipe tensioners for pipelaying...

vessel. Oil is exported through the 55 kilometres (34.2 mi) 16 inches (406.4 mm) link to the Troll II trunkline, and onwards to the Mongstad Refinery north of Bergen

Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....

.
The gas field came on stream in November 2010.

Gjøa semi-submersible

Semi-submersible

A semi-submersible is a specialised marine vessel with good stability and seakeeping characteristics. The semi-submersible vessel design is commonly used in a number of specific offshore roles such as for offshore drilling rigs, safety vessels, oil production platforms and heavy lift cranes.The...

 floating production platform is also linked with the Vega and Vega South fields development.