Hurricane finds oil at Lincoln well

UK-based oil and gas company Hurricane Energy has completed the drilling and logging phase of the Lincoln well, located west of the Shetland Islands, after making an oil discovery. 

Hurricane started drilling the Lincoln well on November 8, 2016, with the Transocean Spitsbergen semi-sub drilling rig.

Following the completion of the 205/26b-A well, the company on Monday released a preliminary information about the well which will be updated after the detailed analysis and once the final well data and third-party reports have been received and analyzed.

For now, the company said that the Lincoln operations have resulted in a significant fractured basement discovery; the key headlines of which include: hydrocarbons were encountered at the depth of the planned TD of the Lincoln well resulting in the operational decision to deepen the Lincoln well; gas chromatography and logging while drilling data indicates a very significant hydrocarbon column of at least 660 metres TVD, comparable to that found at Lancaster; and the oil down to (ODT) was observed at approximately 520 metres TVD below structural closure which is 168 metres TVD below the ODT in the Arco 205/21-1 well, which was drilled on Lincoln’s flank in 1995.

The Lincoln well was planned to exclude testing, and the well is now being plugged and abandoned ahead of the Transocean Spitsbergen drilling rig being demobilized from the well location.

Once weather and sea state conditions allow it, the rig will move to the Halifax well location. To remind, Hurricane at the end of November exercised its option over the semi-sub rig Transocean Spitsbergen to drill the Halifax prospect off the Shetland Isles, after the completion of the Lincoln well.

Dr Robert Trice, CEO of Hurricane, commented: “I am delighted that, at the end of an extraordinary year for Hurricane, the Lincoln well has discovered a significant oil column outside structural closure on our Greater Lancaster Area acreage. Our initial assessment of the drilling results will be subject to refinement by analysis of wireline and sidewall core data, however, current analysis indicates that our pre-drill resource assessments – which were constrained by the oil down to in the Arco Well – of approximately 250 million barrels of recoverable oil for the Lincoln prospect may be conservative.

“I look forward to Hurricane’s imminent operations on the hugely important Halifax well and to simultaneously progressing towards the sanction of the Lancaster Early Production System in H1 2017.”