The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Statoil a drilling permit for wildcat well 16/1-29 S located in the North Sea.
The wildcat 16/1-29 S will be drilled from the Deepsea Bergen semi-submersible drilling rig.
The drilling program for the well relates to the drilling of a wildcat well in production license 167.
Statoil is the operator with an ownership interest of 80 percent, while Lundin Norway is a licensee with an ownership interest of 20 percent.
Production license 167 was awarded in the 13th round on March 1, 1991. The area in this production license is located in the central part of the North Sea and consists of the eastern part of block 16/1.
The well will be the sixth exploration well drilled in the license, just northeast of the Ivar Aasen field.
Statoil received consent from the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) last month to drill the 16/1-29 S well using the Deepsea Bergen drilling rig. The offshore safety regulator said that drilling was planned to start in February 2018.
The drilling operation will last around 37 days, depending on whether a discovery is made.
As for the rig, Deepsea Bergen is a semi-submersible drilling rig of the Aker H-3.2 type, built at Aker Verdal in 1983. Owned and operated by Odfjell Drilling, the semi-sub is classified by DNV GL and registered in Norway.