Norway’s oil and gas company Equinor has drilled two dry wells near the Fram field in the North Sea off Norway.
The wildcat wells 35/11-25 S and 35/11-25 A are located in production licence 090 where Equinor is the operator. The oil company received drilling permits for the wells back in April 2021.
Equinor drilled the wells about 7 kilometres west of the Fram field in the northern North Sea and 125 kilometres north-west of Bergen.
The objective of well 35/11-25 S was to prove petroleum in rocks from the Late Jurassic (Sognefjord Formation equivalent). The objective of well 35/11-25 A was to prove petroleum in the Etive Formation from the Middle Jurassic.
According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s report on Thursday, the well 35/11-25 S encountered about 65 metres of intra-Heather Formation sandstone (Sognefjord Formation equivalent) of good to very good reservoir quality. The well is dry.
The well 35/11-25 A encountered about 55 metres of sandstone of moderate reservoir quality in the Etive Formation. The well is dry.
The wells were not formation-tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling were performed. These are the 19th and 20th exploration wells in the Equinor-operated production licence 090, which was awarded in the 8th licensing round in 1984.
The well 35/11-25 S was drilled to respective vertical and measured depths of 2,854 and 3,157 metres below sea level, and was terminated in the Heather Formation from the Late Jurassic.
The well 35/11-25 A was drilled to respective vertical and measured depths of 3,208 and 3,711 metres below sea level and was terminated in the Oseberg Formation from the Middle Jurassic.
Water depth at the site is 352 metres. The wells have been permanently plugged and abandoned.
Equinor drilled the wells using the Deepsea Atlantic drilling rig, which is now moving on to drill wildcat well 31/11-1 S in production licence 785 S in the central part of the North Sea, where Equinor is also the operator.