Equinor picks up drilling permit for Visund well

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

The NPD said on Monday that the 34/8-18 S well would be drilled from the drilling facility on the Visund A platform.

The well is located in production license 120 in the North Sea where Equinor is the operator with an ownership interest of 59.064516 percent. The other licensees are ConocoPhillips Scandinavia with 13 percent, Petoro with 16.935484, and Repsol Norge with 11 percent.

Production license 120 was awarded on 23 August 2005 in licensing round 10A on the Norwegian Shelf. This is the 16th well to be drilled in the license.

The NPD added that the drilling program for the well relates to the drilling of wildcat wells/appraisal wells in the license. The area in this license consists of part of block 34/8.

As for the Visund field, it is an oil and gas reservoir located 22 kilometers offshore northeast of the Gullfaks field in the Tampen area outside Norway. In 2017, it achieved an average production of 124,614 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

Onstream since the spring of 1999, the field has been developed with a floating production, drilling and quarters platform. The subsea-completed wells on the field are tied back to the floater with flexible risers. Oil is piped to Gullfaks for storage and export.

The Visund field began producing gas and exporting it to continental Europe on October 7, 2005.

To remind, Equinor brought on stream the Visund Nord IOR (improved oil recovery) project on September 2, 2018.