Aker BP has made a small gas find in the the North Sea, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate announced this week.
The Norwegian oil and gas company drilled a wildcat and appraisal well in production licence 869, about 6 kilometers southwest of the Bøyla field, and about 230 kilometers west of Stavanger in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. Both wells were drilled using the Odfjell Drilling semisubmersible drilling facility Deepsea Nordkapp, in about 118 meters water depth.
Wildcat well 24/9-13 aimed to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks (sand injectites) in the Eocene and was drilled to a vertical depth of 2,272 meters below the sea surface. Drillers encountered a gas column of about 3 meters in the Hordaland group, whereof a total of 2 meters of sandstone with mainly good reservoir quality. Several sandstone layers with mainly good reservoir quality were also encountered, totaling 17 meters in the Balder formation. These showed traces of petroleum. The sandstones are interpreted as being immobilized sand from the Heimdal and Hermod formation, and injected into overlying stratigraphy in the Rogaland and Hordaland group.
Appraisal well 24/9-13 A, which aimed to prove petroleum/water contacts, was drilled to respective vertical and measured depths of 2,240 meters and 3,433 meters below the sea surface, and encountered a gas column of about 40 meters in injectite zones, of which a total of 7 meters of sandstone with good to very good reservoir quality. The sandstones are interpreted as being injected sands in the Hordaland group, as in well 24/9-13.
Petroleum/water contacts were not encountered in any of the wells, but the wells overall proved a gas column of minimum 77 meters. Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 0.6 and 1.7 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalents.
Both wells were terminated in the Heimdal formation in the Palaeocene. The wells have been permanently plugged and abandoned. The wells were not formation-tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling have been conducted.
Aker BP and license partners Lundin Norway and Our Energy will assess the well results for further delineation of the discovery.
These are the third and fourth exploration wells in production licence 869, which was awarded in APA 2016.
Deepsea Nordkapp will now drill a production well on the Skogul field in production licence 460, where Aker BP is the operator.
(Image: Norwegian Petroleum Directorate)
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