Aker BP makes small gas find in North Sea

Norwegian oil and gas company Aker BP has made a small gas discovery some six kilometers southwest of the Bøyla field offshore Norway.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) reported on Wednesday that the gas find was made during drilling of one wildcat and one appraisal well in production license 869 located in the North Sea.

The wildcat was drilled to a vertical depth of 2,272 meters below the sea surface while the appraisal well was drilled to respective vertical and measured depths of 2,240 meters and 3,433 meters below the sea surface.

Petroleum/water contacts were not encountered in either well but proved an overall gas column of minimum 77 meters.

According to the NPD, preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 0.6 and 1.7 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalents.

Partners in the license – Aker BP, Lundin, and Vår Energi – will assess the well results for further delineation of the discovery.

The wells were not formation-tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling have been conducted. They have been permanently plugged and abandoned.

The discovery was made by the Deepsea Nordkapp drilling rig, which will now drill a production well on the Skogul field in production license 460, where Aker BP is also the operator.