Statoil makes oil and gas discovery near Njord field

Norwegian oil company Statoil has made an oil and gas discovery at the Njord North Flank in the Norwegian Sea. 

The well and side-track, NF-2 and NF-3, are located in License PL107C, approximately six kilometers to the north of the Njord production platform.

The wells were drilled with Songa Offshore’s semi-submersible rig Songa Delta, which will now proceed to a plugging operation on Tune in production license 190.

According to Faroe, Statoil’s partner in the license with 7.5% interest, the NF-2 exploration well 6407/7-9 S was drilled to a total depth of 4,105 meters below sea level. The well encountered 102 meters of gross oil-bearing reservoir in Middle and Lower Jurassic sandstones of the Ile and 157 meters of a gross gas condensate-bearing column in Lower Jurassic sandstones in the Tilje formation.

Based on these results, Faroe said, the partnership decided to drill a side-track well 6407/7-9A to test a fault-block lying to the east which was drilled to a total depth of 4,127 meters below sea level. The well encountered 195 meters of gross gas-bearing column in the Tilje Formation. In addition, 140 meters of gross gas-bearing column were encountered in Lower Jurassic sandstones in the Åre Formation. No hydrocarbons were encountered in the Ile Formation in NF3.

Neither well was drill stem tested but extensive data acquisition and sampling has been performed on both wells. Based on the data acquired, a preliminary estimate of the size of the NF-2 discovery is between 1.3 and 18.9 mmboe for NF-2 and between 0.6 and 9.4 mmboe for side-track NF-3. Collectively these discoveries are equivalent to a range of 1.9mmboe to 28.3mmboe (0.14mmboe to 2.1mmboe net to Faroe). These results are in line with pre-drill estimates. The well has now been plugged and abandoned as planned and the partners will start work on assessing the commercial potential of the discovery.

Graham Stewart, Chief Executive of Faroe Petroleum, commented: “We are pleased to announce this oil and gas discovery on the Njord North Flank, Faroe’s second discovery of the year, following our significant Brasse oil and gas find announced in summer, which is also located very close to infrastructure. This new Greater Njord Area discovery builds on Faroe’s already significant position in this core area of the Norwegian Sea and has the potential to add further value and reserves to the Njord Future Project, which is scheduled to commence in early 2017.”

Stewart added: “We look forward to Faroe’s continuing exploration program; next up is the high impact exploration well on the Dazzler prospect (Faroe 20%) located in the Barents Sea. Dazzler will be operated by Eni and is scheduled to spud around year end.”