Statoil Gets Green Light for Drilling in Norwegian North Sea

Statoil has received consent to carry out exploration drilling of wells 16/2-8 and 16/2-9S in the North Sea with the Transocean Leader mobile facility.

The wells will be drilled in production licence 265, with Statoil as the operator (40%). The other licensees are Petoro AS (30%), Det norske oljeselskap ASA (20%) and Lundin Norway AS (10%).

Well 16/2-8 is located 39 kilometres south of Grane, and has the following geographical coordinates:

N 58° 48′ 57.05″, E 02° 32′ 30.71″. Water depth at the site is 135 m.

Well 16/2-9S is located 28 kilometres south of Grane, and has the following geographical coordinates:

N 58° 54′ 46.39″, E 02° 26′ 22.80″. Water depth at the site is 115 m.

The scheduled start-up is in July 2011, and the activity has an estimated duration of approx. 75 days. In addition, there is an option to carry out a production test on one of the wells with a duration of 20 days.

Transocean Leader is an Aker H-4.2 semi-submersible drilling facility built in 1987 at Hyundai Heavy Industries in Korea.

The facility is owned and operated by Transocean Offshore Ltd, with the Marshal Islands as the flag state and DNV as the classification society.

(ptil)

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Source: ptil , July 5, 2011;