Norwegian oil company Statoil has made a minor gas discovery northeast of the Heidrun field in the Norwegian Sea.
According to a Thursday statement by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), Statoil is about to complete the drilling of wildcat well 6507/8-9 located in production license 124 where Statoil is the operator.
The well was drilled about 9 kilometers northeast of the Heidrun field in the Norwegian Sea and about 270 kilometers southwest of Sandnessjøen. Statoil gained a permit to drill the wildcat well 6507/8-9 and a pilot well 6507/8-U2 back in July .
The directorate said that the primary exploration target for the 6507/8-9 well was to prove petroleum in Middle and/or Lower Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Fangst and/or Båt Group). The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in Lower Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Båt Group).
The well encountered a gas column of a total of approx. 80 metres in the Åre formation in the Båt Group, of which 35 metres were in sandstone with good reservoir quality. The gas/water contact was proven 2185 metres below the sea surface. In the secondary exploration target, the well encountered several water-filled sandstone layers with good reservoir quality in lower parts of the Åre formation in the Båt Group.
The preliminary estimation of the size of the discovery is between 0.7 and 1.2 billion standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable gas. The licensees in production license 124 will consider a tie-in of the discovery to existing infrastructure on the Heidrun field.
The well was not formation tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling have been carried out.
This is the eighth exploration well in production license 124, which was awarded in the 10th licensing round in 1986.
The well 6507/8-9 was drilled to a vertical depth of 2352 meters below the sea surface, and was terminated in the Åre formation in the Lower Jurassic. Water depth is 358 meters. The well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.
The well was drilled by the Deepsea Bergen drilling rig, which will now proceed to drill wildcat well 33/9-22 S in production license 881 in the North Sea, where Wellesley Petroleum is the operator.