LEIV EIRIKSSON OIL RIG, Norwegian Barents Sea: French oil major Total is betting on a riskier exploration strategy in the “frontier” basins of the North Sea and the start-up of its $ 5 billion Laggan-Tormore field to become the top oil and gas producer in Britain in 2015, the group said.

Total is among a raft of operators pouring billions of dollars of investment into the icy, rough waters off the coast of Scotland and Norway, where long-declining production potential has been revived by better technology and higher oil prices.

“Our strategy is to look for more difficult prospects, riskier ones, which means a higher risk of finding dry wells, but with the hope that from time to time, we find a huge one that pays off,” Yves-Louis Darricarrere, head of Total’s upstream division, said.

Darricarrere was speaking after a visit of the Leiv Eiriksson oil rig in the Barents Sea, a massive drilling platform slowly working its way to its destination after a two-month journey up the Atlantic from the Falklands.

“These projects around the North Sea are a good illustration of a strategy we are now deploying in our upstream operations globally,” Darricarrere said.

Darricarrere said new production coming onstream next year would push Total to the top of the UK’s oil and gas producing table in 2015, placing it ahead of British oil group BP, which is also pressing ahead with investments in the region.

The French major is spending $ 5 billion a year in northern Europe overall, exploring ever further north in the Barents Sea, upgrading aging facilities at Alwyn North off the UK coast, and building a new gas hub 125 km west of the Shetland islands.

The Laggan-Tormore gas and condensate field will be Total’s third major hub in British waters, on top of the existing Alwyn North and Elgin-Franklin provinces, and is expected to start output in the summer of 2014, eventually reaching peak production rates of 93,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

The gas will be brought onshore to a new gas plant being built on the Shetland Islands, whose 500 million cubic feet of gas per day will be exported to the St. Fergus gas terminal north of Aberdeen when it starts production next year.

Total expects the new production to help it meet its 2017 output capacity goal of about 3 million barrels of oil equivalent a day. Darricarrere said the more aggressive exploration strategy should see growth accelerating after 2017.

New technology, such as better seismic tests allowing the design of more precise 3-dimensional maps of the fields deep under the seabed, have played a major role in the rejuvenation of North Sea oil production.

“With new ultra-sound technology, we can even now see in 4D, the fourth dimension being time, giving an idea of how structures in the field are evolving,” said Patrice de Vivies, chairman of Total Holdings UK.

Total’s production in the North Sea is not without setbacks however, with a huge gas leak in the Elgin field last year forcing the evacuation of 238 workers and a one-year shutdown of the platform. Production restarted last month and returned to half of its pre-accident levels, De Vivies said.

Britain’s regulator, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), is expected to publish a full report on the incident in the coming weeks, Total said.

Further north in the Norwegian Arctic, Total is also one of the most active oil firms exploring for oil and gas, with the second-largest reserves after Statoil.

Until two years ago, few foreign oil companies were interested in exploring the Norwegian section of the Barents Sea as exploration results had been disappointing.

Over a period of 30 years, close to 100 exploration wells were drilled with the vast majority coming up dry.

Total was nevertheless present in the region at the time, together with Statoil and Italy’s Eni. Norway remained the French group’s biggest production contributor for years until Nigeria replaced it at the top last year.

The turning point came in 2011 when Statoil discovered the Skrugard oilfield, followed by Total’s Norvarg discovery. These discoveries showed that oil could be found in the Norwegian Barents Sea, rejuvenating the oil prospects of Norway, the world’s eighth-biggest crude exporter.

Total is now developing the Martin Linge field, which is expected to come onstream in 2016 and become one of the group’s major hubs in the region.