Oil and gas company Lundin Energy Norway has made a minor oil discovery near the Solveig field in the North Sea off Norway.
The well 16/4-13 S is located production licence 359 where Lundin is the operator.
Lundin was given a drilling permit to drill the well as well as safety consent to use the West Bollsta rig on it in January 2021.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said on Friday that Lundin has now concluded the drilling of wildcat well 16/4-13 S.
Lundin drilled the well about 15 kilometres south of the Edvard Grieg field in the central part of the North Sea and 190 kilometres west of Stavanger.
The objective of the well was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Triassic to Paleozoic Age. The well encountered an oil column of 10 metres in conglomerate sandstone in these rocks, about 7 metres of which with moderate to poor reservoir quality.
The oil/water contact was encountered 1950 metres below the sea surface. The entire reservoir, including the water zone, consists of conglomeratic sandstones and in a thickness of about 380 metres.
According to the NPD, preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 0.5 and 1.4 million standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalent. The licensees will assess the discovery with regard to a possible tie-in to the Solveig field.
Extensive data acquisition and sampling have been carried out.
This is the sixth exploration well to be drilled in the Lundin-operated production licence 359, which was awarded in APA 2005.
Lundin drilled the well to respective measured and vertical depths of 2,422 and 2,325 metres below sea level and was terminated in Paleozoic rocks. Water depth at the site is 100 metres. The well will be permanently plugged and abandoned.
It was drilled by the West Bollsta drilling rig , which will now drill the production well 16/4-BA-1H on the Solveig field in production licence 359 in the North Sea for Lundin.