Ormen Lange gas field's reserves in the Norwegian Sea could be 25% less than previously estimated, Norwegian business daily Dagens Naeringsliv wrote in an article published on Friday, which quotes industry sources.

The paper reported that the field's profitability and life cycle could be reduced if the gas reserves were found to be less than previously expected.

This would be be negative for the operator, Shell, together with partners StatoilHydro, Dong, Petoro and ExxonMobil, DN reported, quoting an article written in oil industry trade publication Upstream.

 "We are now working to update our reservoir model at Ormen Lange which will conclude next year," Shell spokesperson Kitty Eide told Offshore, who could not comment on the media reports about the reserves.

Working on new reservoir model - spokesperson 

Disappointing drilling results in the north of the field made it possible that official reserve estimates of 382 billion cubic meters of recoverable gas could be 100 billion cubic meters too high, the paper said referring to the unnamed industry sources contained in the trade journal report.

Ormen Lange is the biggest natural gas field in development on the Norwegian continental shelf, located about 120km north of the city of Kristiansund, where the depths of the seabed can be between 800 metres and over 1,000 metres.

The total cost of the ambitious project has been estimated to be around $12bn by the time of its completion.

It is being developed without employing conventional offshore platforms, utilising in their place 24 subsea wellheads in four seabed templates on the ocean floor. These will be linked to two pipelines back on an onshore terminal at Nyhamna. Frm there the gas is transpored to the UK via the Langeled pipeline.