Norwegian oil company Equinor Energy has made a gas/condensate discovery in the offshore licence 255 B, about 25 km south of the Kristin field in the Norwegian Sea.
The primary exploration target for the well was to prove petroleum in Middle and Lower Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Garn, Ile and Tofte formations).
The well, formally named well 6406/5-2 S, was drilled by the Deepsea Stavanger semi-submersible drilling rig and encountered a gas/condensate column of about 24 meters in the Garn Formation, 46 m of which was a sandstone reservoir with poor to moderate reservoir properties.
The Garn Formation had a total thickness of 60 meters. The well also encountered 102 meters and 140 meters of sandstone reservoirs in the Ile and Tofte Formations, respectively, with moderate to good reservoir quality. The reservoir was water-filled.
Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery in the Garn Formation between 0.2 million Sm3 and 1.1 million Sm3 of recoverable oil equivalent. The licensees will assess the discovery alongside other nearby discoveries/prospects, as regards further follow-up, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said.
The well was not formation-tested, but data acquisition and sampling have been carried out.
This is the fourth exploration well in production licence 255 B, which was carved out of production licence 255 in 2016 (awarded in the 16th licensing round).
The well 6406/5-2 S was drilled to a vertical depth of 4582 meters, and was terminated in the Ror Formation from the Early Jurassic. The water depth at the site is 304 meters. The well has been permanently plugged and abandoned.
The Deepsea Stavanger drilling rig is now drilling a pilot hole in production licence 1058, where Equinor is also the operator.