PGNiG makes small oil and gas discovery in Norwegian Sea

PGNiG Upstream Norway, a Norwegian subsidiary of Polish oil and gas company PGNiG, has made a small oil and gas discovery southeast of the Skarv field in the Norwegian Sea. 

PGNiG Upstream Norway has concluded the drilling of wildcat well 6507/5-9 S and appraisal well 6507/5-9 A located in its operated production license 838. The well 6507/5-9 S was named Shrek.

The company was granted both a drilling permit and safety consent to use the Deepsea Nordkapp rig for the 6507/5-9 S well in August 2019.

The wells were drilled about 5 kilometers south of the Skarv facility in the Norwegian Sea and 210 kilometers northwest of Brønnøysund.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said on Tuesday that primary exploration target for both wells was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Fangst group). The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in Lower Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Båt group) and to delineate the discovery toward the west.

The discovery well 6507/5-9 S encountered a total oil and gas column of about 85 meters in the Fangst and Båt groups, of which about 60 meters of sandstones with mainly good to very good reservoir quality. The gas/oil and oil/water contacts were encountered at 2034 meters and 2074 meters under the sea surface, respectively.

The appraisal well 6507/5-9 A encountered a total oil and gas column of about 65 meters in the Fangst and Båt groups, of which about 45 meters of sandstones with mainly good to very good reservoir quality. Both the gas/oil and the oil/water contacts in the appraisal well came in at equivalent depths as in the discovery well.

Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 3 and 6 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalents. The licensees in production license 838 will consider tying the discovery in to the Skarv facility.

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

These are the first and second exploration wells in production license 838, which was awarded in APA 2015.

The well 6507/5-9 S was drilled to a vertical depth of 2261 meters and a measured depth of 2285 meters under the sea surface, and well 6507/5-9 A was drilled to a vertical depth of 2134 meters and a measured depth of 2198 meters under the sea surface. Both wells were terminated in the Båt group in the Lower Jurassic.

The water depth at the site is 357 meters. The wells will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.

Wells 6507/5-9 S and 6507/5-9 A were drilled by the Deepsea Nordkapp drilling rig, which will now drill an appraisal well in production license 093 on the Draugen field in the Norwegian Sea, where OKEA is the operator.