Dong Plugs Dry Hole in Barents Sea, Offshore Norway

Dong E&P Norge AS, operator of production licence 518, is about to complete the drilling of wildcat well 7121/9-1. The well is dry.  The well was drilled about 100 kilometres northwest of Hammerfest and about 20 kilometres west of the Goliat field in the southwestern part of the Barents Sea.

The objective of the well, which is the first exploration well in production licence 518, was to prove petroleum in Upper Triassic and Lower Cretaceous reservoir rocks (Knurr and Hekkingen formations). The well encountered the Knurr formation with considerably thinner reservoir rocks and with poorer reservoir quality than expected. No reservoir rocks were encountered in the Hekkingen formation.

The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 2418 metres below the sea surface and was terminated in Middle Jurassic rocks. The water depth is 310 metres. The well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.

Well 7121/9-1 was drilled by the Aker Barents rig, a 6th generation semi-submersible drilling facility constructed according to the H-6e concept for drilling operations at water depths up to 3000 metres and in Arctic regions.

The facility was delivered as a new construction during the summer of 2009, built by Aker Solutions at the Stord yard in Norway.

The facility is owned and operated by Aker Drilling, with main offices in Stavanger.

The rig will now proceed to production licence 532 in the Barents Sea to drill wildcat well 7220/7-1 where Statoil Petroleum AS is the operator.

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Offshore Energy Today Staff , November 24, 2011;