The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Statoil a drilling permit for well 7219/9-2, in the Barents Sea off Norway.
The drilling program for well 7219/9-2, in a prospect named Kayak, relates to the drilling of a wildcat well in production license 532 where Statoil is the operator with 50 percent interest and the licensees are Eni Norge with 30 percent and Petoro with 20 percent.
The well will be drilled from the Songa Offshore-owned Songa Enabler Cat D drilling rig. The oil company received consent from the country’s offshore safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), to use this rig for the Kayak well back in April when it was expected it would start that month.
However, as the drilling permit was just announced it seems the drilling of the Kayak well did not start in April. Another fact that goes in favor of this conclusion is the rig’s location. According to the latest AIS data, the rig is currently on its way to the Kayak well location in the Barents Sea.
Further fact to support this conclusion was the Songa Enabler kicking off drilling operations on the Blåmann well, late in May. Blåmann was the first of five wells from Statoil’s Barents Sea drilling campaign. The drill site is in 376 meters of water, around 113 kilometers north-west of Hammerfest and 25 kilometers from Goliat.
The area in production license 532 consists of the blocks 7219/9, 7220/4, 7220/5, 7220/7 and 7220/8. The well will be drilled about 23 kilometers southwest of the discovery well 7220/8-1 in production license 532, which was awarded in the 20th licensing round in 2009.
In order to confirm the current status of the rig and the progress of the Barents Sea campaign, Offshore Energy Today reached out to Statoil and the two agencies.
A spokesperson for the PSA said that while the agency’s consent was issued in April it did not necessarily mean the drilling would start at that time.
“Statoil have received consent to start in April, at the earliest, but we don’t know if they have started drilling yet,” the spokesperson added.
Offshore Energy Today Staff