Norway's Equinor has discovered oil and gas four kilometers west of the Oseberg field in the North Sea in two separate formations, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said on Friday.
The combined volume of crude and natural gas in the Eiriksson and Cook formations was estimated at between 2.5 million and 8.8 million barrels of oil equivalent, according to the NPD.
"The discovery represents important additional resources to Oseberg. Equinor and partners will continue to work to understand the discovery and find production solutions for the oil and gas," the Petroleum Directorate said in a statement.
The exploration well was drilled from the Oseberg C platform, which could make it possible to tie the new find into the field.
"It's not a big discovery, but as it is drilled from the platform the barrels will be highly profitable and put on stream fast," an Equinor spokesperson told Reuters.
It was the first drilling in a planned campaign of "at least" four to six wells in the Oseberg area where Equinor aims to produce as much as possible during the life-span of the installations, the spokesperson said.
State-controlled Equinor is the operator and owns 49.3% of the Oseberg field while Petoro holds 33.6%, TotalEnergies 14.7%, and ConocoPhillips 2.4%.
(Reuters - Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Anna Ringstrom and Terje Solsvik)