Equinor Makes 'Commercially Interesting' Offshore Oil and Gas Discovery in Norway

Norwegian oil and gas firm Equinor has made an oil and gas discovery near its Troll field in the North Sea, offshore Norway.

The company said this was its eighth discovery in the area since 2019. 

According to Equinor, the volumes discovered are estimated at between 24 and 84 million barrels of oil equivalent, with slightly more oil than gas. 

Named Heisenberg, the discovery well was drilled by Odfjell Drilling's Deepsea Stavanger semi-submersible drilling rig. 

Equinor is the operator, and DNO is a partner. 

"The discovery is considered commercially interesting, partly because it can utilize existing infrastructure connected to the Troll B platform," Equinor said.

However, an appraisal well is needed to get a more precise estimate of the size before it can be concluded whether the volumes can be recovered. 

Equinor and DNO are considering drilling the appraisal well in 2024. 

The well, formally named Well 35/10-9, was drilled to a vertical depth of 1779 meters below sea level and a measured depth of 1809 meters.   The water depth at the site is 368 meters. The well has been permanently plugged and abandoned.

Geir Sørtveit, Equinor’s senior vice president for exploration and production west said: "Our Troll exploration play keeps delivering. With discoveries in eight out of nine exploration wells, we are approaching a success rate of 90%. We plan to further explore the area, while looking at possible development solutions for the discoveries that have been made. We have a good infrastructure in the area and can quickly bring competitive barrels from here to the market at low cost and with low CO2 emissions," 

The seven previous discoveries are: Echino South, Swisher, Røver North, Blasto, Toppand, Kveikje and Røver South.

Equinor plans to drill between 20-30 exploration wells each year going forward. Around 80 percent of the exploration wells will be drilled in known areas close to infrastructure, but new selected areas and ideas will be tested, Equinor said.

The Deepsea Stavanger drilling rig, which was used to drill the Heisenberg well,  will now drill wildcat well 6406/5-2 in production licence 255B in the Norwegian Sea, where Equinor is the operator.