Norwegian oil company Det norske oljeselskap has completed the drilling of two appraisal wells in the Ivar Aasen field area, with mixed results.
According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the company drilled the wells in the 001 B to delineate the West Cable (16/1-7) discovery made in 2004. The size of the discovery, included in the Ivar Aasen field, prior to drilling the appraisal wells was 2.1 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalents.
The objective of appraisal wells 16/1-26 S and 16/1-26 A was to prove additional recoverable oil resources in the southern part of the 16/1-7 discovery, in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Sleipner formation) closer to the main structure on the Ivar Aasen field.
The first well, 16/1-26 S encountered a gas/oil column of about 25 metres in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Hugin formation), of which 15 metres were sandstone of moderate to good reservoir quality. The oil/water contact was not encountered, but was estimated to be at approximately 2700 metres vertical depth. This is shallower than the previously estimated oil/water contact for the 16/1-7-discovery.
16/1-26 A encountered about 75 metres of sandstone in the Sleipner formation with moderate to good reservoir quality, but is dry.
Preliminary estimates place the additional resources at between 0.5 and 2 million standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalents. The licensees will assess recovery of the additional resources. The results have yielded valuable information as regards final placement of the development well on the 16/1-7 discovery, the NPD said.
None of the wells were formation-tested, but data acquisition and sampling have been carried out.
The NPD gave the go-ahead for the appraisal well drilling in March and April . Det norske is the operator of the license with an ownership interest of 34.7862 percent. Other licensees are Statoil with 41.4730 per cent, Bayerngas Norge with 12.3173 per cent, Wintershall Norge with 6.4615 per cent, VNG Norge with 3.0230 percent, Lundin Norway with 1.3850 per cent and OMV (Norge) with 0.5540 per cent.
The area in this license consists of part of block 16/1. Production license 001 B was carved out of production license 001 on 1 Sept. 1999. PL 001 was awarded on 1 Sept. 1965 (Round 1-A).
The wells were drilled using the Maersk Interceptor jack-up drilling rig, which will now continue with the pre-drilling program on the Ivar Aasen field, which has a planned production start-up date of 1 December 2016.