Equinor in small oil discovery in North Sea

Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor has made a small oil discovery in production license 167 at the Utsira High in the North Sea.

According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s report on Friday, Equinor has completed drilling appraisal wells 16/1-30 S and 16/1-30 A located in the North Sea. The wells are located in production license 167 where Equinor is the operator.

The wells were drilled about one kilometer west of the discovery well 16/1-29 S (Lille Prinsen) in the central part of the North Sea and 200 kilometers west of Stavanger and 5 kilometers north-east of the Ivar Aasen field.

Equinor said in a separate statement on Friday that the discovery in the main reservoir is currently estimated to contain between 5 and 25 million barrels of oil in-place. It has not yet been concluded if the discovered oil is commercial.

Prior to drilling the appraisal wells, the size of the discovery was between 2.5 and 5.5 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) of recoverable oil.

Evaluation of other segments in Lille Prinsen, and former discoveries in shallower formations, will determine the need for further appraisal of Lille Prinsen, Equinor added.

Well targets 

The NPD said that the primary exploration target for well 16/1-30 S was to delimit the 16/1-29 S oil discovery and to determine the oil/water contact in the outer wedge to the south. The licensees also wanted to investigate the possibility of reservoirs in the Triassic and Jurassic.

The secondary exploration target was to delineate 16/1-6 S Verdandi for a possible oil zone in the Heimdal formation, as well as to investigate the petroleum potential in the Grid formation and to collect data in basement rock.

In the primary exploration target, the well encountered an 18-meter oil column in the Viking group from the Middle to Late Jurassic age, with sandstone layers totaling 2 meters with moderate reservoir quality. The oil/water contact was proven 1919 meters below the sea surface.

The secondary exploration target in the Heimdal formation was not encountered. In the Grid formation, the well encountered an oil column of twelve meters, with one meter of sandstone with moderate reservoir quality. Relatively dense basement rock was encountered.

The objective of well 16/1-30 A was to examine the extent of the carbonate reservoir in the Zechstein group from the Late Permian period, as well as to investigate the possibility of reservoir development in the Triassic and the Jurassic periods.

The well encountered a 15-meter oil column in the Viking group from the Middle to Late Jurassic, with sandstone layers with a total thickness of 6 meters with poor to moderate reservoir quality. Oil was proven down to 1914 meters below the sea surface.

The carbonate reservoir from the Late Permian period was not encountered. Additional volumes in the outer wedge of the 16/1-29 S (Lille Prinsen) oil discovery are estimated at between 0.2 to 1 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) of recoverable oil.

Other segments in 16/1-29 S (Lille Prinsen) will be evaluated, and further delineation of the oil discoveries is being evaluated. The licensees will also assess earlier discoveries within the licence.

These are the seventh and eighth wells in production license 167, which was awarded in the 12th licensing round in 1991.

The well 16/1-30 S was drilled to a measured and vertical depth of 2101 meters and 2018 meters below the sea surface. The well 16/1-30 A was drilled to a measured and vertical depth of 2037 meters and 1952 meters below the sea surface. Water depth at the site is 113 meters. The wells have now been permanently plugged and abandoned.

The wells were not formation-tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling have been carried out.

The wells were drilled by the West Phoenix drilling rig, which will now proceed to production license 942 in the Norwegian Sea to drill wildcat well 6507/2-5 S, where Equinor is also the operator.

Small oil discovery in Klaff well 

Equinor added that a small-size oil discovery was recently made in the Klaff well in PL 502 about 1 kilometer west of the Johan Sverdrup oil field in the central part of the North Sea.

The discovery was made in fractured basement rock, and it is currently not possible to determine whether the oil is recoverable.

Pending new information and interpretation of acquired data the preliminary classification is that the Klaff well is dry.

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