Statoil has said its three-well exploration campaign in the Hoop area of the Barents Sea has failed to make a commercial discovery after completing its final wildcat well on the Mercury prospect.
Well 7324/9-1 on the Mercury prospect was in license 614 in the Barents Sea offshore Norway. It was the first well on production license (PL) 614 and followed expoloration wells on Apollo and Alantis, both in PL 615.
Well 732/9-1 was drilled about 20km southeast of the 7324/8-1 (Wisting) discovery and 300km north of Hammerfest, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD).
Statoil said: "In Apollo a good reservoir was proved in the well, but no hydrocarbons. Atlantis and Mercury resulted in two small gas discoveries.
“We are naturally disappointed with the results of this summer’s drilling campaign in the Hoop area,” says Irene Rummelhoff, Statoil senior vice president for exploration on the Norway continental shelf.
"We know from experience that exploring for hydrocarbons in the Barents Sea takes time and stamina" - Rummelhoff
“However, it is important to understand that Hoop is a frontier area of more than 15,000 square kilometres with only six wells completed to date, so we do not have all the answers about the subsurface yet. Non-commercial discoveries and dry wells are part of the game in frontier exploration. They provide important knowledge about the area.”
According to the NPD, the well’s primary exploration target was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Middle Jurassic to Late Triassic Age (Realgrunn sub-group). The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Late Triassic Age (the Snadd formation).
Well 7324/9-1 encountered about 10m of gas-filled reservoir rocks in the Stø formation in the Realgrunn sub-group with good reservoir quality. About 50m of net reservoir rocks were encountered in the Snadd formation; they were generally of poor reservoir quality, with a few zones with good reservoir quality.
Preliminary calculations of the size of the discovery are between 1-2 billion standard cubic metres of recoverable gas. Data collection and sampling have been carried out.
The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 1060m below the sea surface, and was terminated in the Snadd formation. Water depth is 414m. The well has now been permanently plugged and abandoned.
“We will now analyse the data we have acquired in the wells and incorporate it in our subsurface models,” says Rummelhoff. “We have confirmed a working petroleum system in Hoop, but need to work further to understand the migration and where the oil has accumulated. We know from experience that exploring for hydrocarbons in the Barents Sea takes time and stamina.”
Well 7324/9-1 was drilled by the semisubmersible Transocean Spitsbergen drilling facility, which will move on to drill wildcat well 7125/4-3 in production licence 393 B, which is also operated by Statoil Petroleum.
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