Statoil Petroleum made a small discovery but also drilled a dry hole on its latest drilling in production license 035, 35km south west of the Oseberg Sor facility.
Wildcat well 30/11-12 S (the Askja South East prospect) encountered a 37m oil column in the upper Tarbert formation, of which about 30m had good to moderate reservoir properties, says the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.
Appraisal well 30/11-12 A was dry, said the NPD. Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery at between 0.7 and 2.5 MMcu m of recoverable oil equivalents.
The discovery will be included in the evaluation of a new field development, along with other earlier discoveries in the area, including Krafla and Askja.
The wells are the 12th and 13th exploration wells in production licence 035. The license was awarded in the 2nd licensing round in 1969.
The wells were were drilled using the Songa Delta drilling facility in 130m water depth.