Wintershall abandons dry pair of wells in North Sea

Oil company Wintershall has completed the drilling of two wildcat wells near the Vega field, in the North Sea offshore Norway, without a significant oil discovery. 

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) announced on Monday that Wintershall completed wildcat drilling of exploration wells 35/8-6 S and 35/8-6 A.

The wells were drilled about five km northwest of the Vega field in the North Sea and 150 km northwest of Bergen. The agency said the purpose of both wells was to prove petroleum in Late Jurassic reservoir rocks in the Heather formation.

According to the exploration drilling results, the well 35/8-6 S hit a poorly developed reservoir in the Heather formation and was classified as dry, while well 35/8-6 A hit a three-meter oil column in the Heather formation with poor reservoir quality.

Preliminary estimates concerning the size of the discovery range between 0.2 and 1 million standard cubic meters of recoverable oil.

The well pair are exploration wells six and seven in the production license 248. The license was awarded in the North Sea Awards 1999 on June 4, 1999.

Wells 35/8-6 S and 35/8-6 A were drilled to a measured depth of 4043 meters and 3800 meters respectively below sea level and to a vertical depth of 3713 meters and 3529 meters below sea level, respectively. Both were concluded in the Heather formation.

The wells were drilled in a water depth of 381 meters and permanently plugged and abandoned.

They were drilled by the Borgland Dolphin semi-submersible drilling rig, which is now heading for production license 248 F in the North Sea in order to drill wildcat well 35/11-19 S, which is operated by Wintershall Norge with an ownership interest of 40 percent. The other licensees are Origo Exploration Norway with 20 percent and Petoro with 40 percent.

Borgland Dolphin is an Aker H-3 type drilling rig owned by Fred. Olsen Energy and operated by Dolphin Drilling. It was built in 1977 in Belfast and upgraded in 1999.