NPD gives green light for Wintershall wellbore

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Wintershall Norge a drilling permit for an exploratory well offshore Florø, Norway.

NPD stated on Friday that the wellbore 35/11-19 S will be drilled from the Borgland Dolphin semi-submersible drilling rig after completing the drilling of wildcat well 35/8-6 A for Wintershall Norge AS in production license 248.

This permit comes after the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority gave Wintershall its approval for the use of the Borgland Dolphin for the well, earlier this week.

NPD said the drilling programme relates to the drilling of a wildcat well in production license 248 F. Wintershall is the operator with an ownership interest of 40 percent while the other licensees are Origo Exploration Norway with 20 percent and Petoro with 40 percent.

The area in this license is a part of block 35/11. The well will be drilled about 100 kilometers southwest of Florø and about 20 kilometers northwest of the Fram field.

It also said the production license 248 F was carved out of production license 248 on 10 December 2015.

Production license 248 was awarded on 4 June 1999 . This is the first well to be drilled within the license.

Borgland Dolphin rigused for this project is an Aker H-3 type semi-submersible mobile drilling rig. The facility is owned by Fred. Olsen Energy and operated by Dolphin Drilling. It was built in 1977 and upgraded in 1999.