Statoil Reports Small Oil Discovery Near Sleipner Offshore Field (Norway)

Statoil Petroleum AS, operator of production licence 303, has completed the drilling of wildcat well 15/6-12, located about 12 kilometres north of Sleipner Vest in the central part of the North Sea.

The purpose of the well was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Hugin formation). The secondary exploration target was to prove hydrocarbons in rocks from the Lower Jurassic and Triassic Ages (the Sleipner formation and the Skagerrak formation).

The well encountered oil in a four-metre column in the Hugin formation in reservoir rocks of poorer reservoir quality than expected. No hydrocarbons were encountered in the Sleipner and Skagerrak formations. The well was not formation-tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling have been carried out. Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 0.2 and 1 million standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable oil, which is not commercially interesting.

15/6-12 is the fifth wildcat well in production licence 303, awarded on 12 December 2003 (APA 2003). The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 3906 metres below sea level, and was terminated in the Skagerrak formation in the Upper Triassic. The water depth at the site is 115 metres. The well has been permanently plugged and abandoned.

Well 15/6-12 was drilled by the Transocean Leader (Photo) drilling facility, which will now proceed to production licence 429 in the Norwegian Sea to drill wildcat well 6407/4-2, with Statoil Petroleum AS as operator.

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Source:Ptil, February  7, 2011;