Norway's Equinor has received approvals to drill two offshore wells in the production licence 090 in the North Sea, offshore Norway.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), which has granted the regulatory approvals for the drilling operations, said the Monday that Equinor would drill wells 35/11-25 S and 35/11-25 A, using the Deepsea Atlantic semi-submersible drilling rig.
"The drilling program for wells 35/11-25 S and 35/11-25 A relates to the drilling of wildcat wells in production licence 090," the NPD said.
Equinor is the operator of the license in which the wells will be drilled, with an ownership interest of 45 percent. The other partners are licensees are Vår Energi AS (25 percent), Neptune Energy Norge AS (15 percent) and Idemitsu Petroleum Norge AS (15 percent). The wells will be drilled about 10 kilometers west of the Fram field.
Equinor last month exercised an extension option for offshore drilling contractor Odfjell Drilling's Deepsea Atlantic drilling rig, with work set to begin after the completion of the current scope estimated to be in Q3 2021.
Bassoe Offshore estimated the duration of the latest one-well contract to be 45 days, at a dayrate of around $280000.