Repsol Receives Drilling Permit for New Well Off Norway

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Repsol Exploration Norge AS a drilling permit for wellbore 7218/11-1, cf. Section 8 of the Resource Management Regulations.

Wellbore 7218/11-1will be drilled from the Transocean Barents drilling rig following completion of drilling of wildcat well 6506/6-2 for Maersk Oil Norway AS in production licence 513.

The drilling programme for wellbore 7218/11-1 relates to drilling of a wildcat well in production licence 531.

Repsol Exploration Norge AS is the operator with an ownership interest of 20 per cent. The other licensees are Concedo ASA (20 per cent), RWE Dea Norge AS (15 per cent), Talisman Energy Norge AS (12.5 per cent), Faroe Petroleum Norge AS (12.5 per cent), Det Norske oljeselskap ASA (10 per cent) and Marathon Oil Norge AS (10 per cent). The area in this licence consists of parts of the 7217/12, 7218/10 and 7218/11 blocks. The well will be drilled about 80 kilometres southwest of the Skrugard discovery and 100 kilometres northeast of the Snøhvit field.

Production licence 531 was awarded on 15 May 2009 in the 20th licensing round. This is the first well to be drilled in the licence.

The permit is contingent upon the operator securing all other permits and consents required by other authorities before commencing drilling activities.

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Press Release, January 16, 2013