Oil and gas company Neptune Energy Norge AS has concluded the drilling of the exploration well 33/6-5 S (Tail prospect) in the North Sea, off Norway. According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the well is dry.
Neptune drilled the wildcat well using the Deepsea Yantai drilling rig, some 10 kilometers northwest of the Snorre field in the northern part of the North Sea and 160 kilometres west of Florø. The rig is owned by China's CIMC, and managed by Odfjell Drilling.
The primary exploration target for the well, located in production licence 882, was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Rannoch Formation). The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in the Statfjord Group in the Lower Jurassic, depending on oil in the Rannoch Formation.
The well encountered around 90 meters of the Rannoch Formation with sandstone of moderate to good reservoir quality.
In the Upper Jurassic, the well encountered around 30 meters of the Draupne Formation, with 5 meters of intra-Draupne sandstone of poor to moderate reservoir quality.
"Well 33/6-5 S was terminated at a shallower level than the planned secondary exploration target in the Statfjord Group. The well is dry," the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said Wednesday.
The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 3428 meters and a measured depth of 3488 meters below sea level, and was terminated in the Drake Formation in the Lower Jurassic. The water depth at the site is 315 meters. The well has been permanently plugged and abandoned.
The Deepsea Yantai's next assignment is the drilling of four production wells at the Fenja field in the Norwegian Sea, where Neptune Energy Norge AS is the operator.
