Equinor granted drilling permit for North Sea wildcat

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Equinor a drilling permit for a wildcat well in the North Sea offshore Norway.

The NPD said on Wednesday that the drilling program was for a wildcat well, designated 35/11-22 S, located in production license 248 C.

Equinor is the operator of production license 248 C with an ownership interest of 30 percent and other licensees are Petoro (40 percent) and Wellesley Petroleum (30 percent).

The area in this license consists of the southwestern part of block 35/11. The well will be drilled around nine kilometers west of the Fram field and about 100 kilometers west-northwest of Mongstad.

Production license 248 C was carved out from production license 248 on April 9, 2013. This is the second well to be drilled in the license.

The NPD added that the well would be drilled by the Deepsea Bergen drilling rig after it completes drilling of Equinor’s wildcat well 6407/11-1 in production license 751.

Deepsea Bergen is a semi-submersible drilling rig of the Aker H-3.2 type built at Aker Verdal in 1983. The rig is owned and operated by Odfjell Drilling and classified by DNV GL and registered in Norway.

To remind, Norway’s safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority, gave consent to Equinor to use the Deepsea Bergen rig on the 35/11-22 S well back in August.