Equinor gearing up to drill North Sea wells

Norwegian energy giant Equinor has received consent from the country’s offshore safety regulator for exploration drilling in the North Sea using the West Hercules rig.

The Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) said on Wednesday it had given its consent to Equinor to drill the well 31/1-2 S and 31/1-2 A.

The prospect – named Røver Nord – is located in production licence 923.

The well will be drilled using the West Hercules semi-submersible rig and the water depth at the site is 349 meters.

As for the duration of operations, the exploration well will last for 42 days with the possibility to drill a sidetrack with a timeframe of 23 days.

In related news, Equinor has recently made an oil and gas discovery in the Swisher prospect near the Fram field in the North Sea offshore Norway.

According to Equinor, the recoverable resources are estimated to be in the range of 2-6 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalent, corresponding to 13-38 million barrels of oil equivalent.

The wells were drilled about seven kilometres west of the Fram field and 130 kilometres northwest of Bergen.