Wintershall Dea gains drilling permit for Norwegian Sea well

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Wintershall Dea Norge, a Norwegian unit of the German oil company Wintershall Dea, a drilling permit for well 6604/6-1, which is located in the Norwegian Sea.

The NPD said on Tuesday that the well, which was given the name Gullstjerne, would be drilled from the Scarabeo 8 drilling rig following a stay at a shipyard.

The drilling program for the well relates to the drilling of a wildcat well in production license 894. Wintershall Dea is the operator with an ownership interest of 40 percent, while Equinor and Petoro are its partners with 40 and 20 percent interests, respectively. According to the NPD, this is the second well to be drilled in the license.

The area in this license consists of parts of blocks 6604/5, 6604/6, 6605/4, 6605/5, and 6605/7. The well will be drilled around 56 kilometers south of the Asterix discovery, 15 kilometers east of the Balderbrå discovery, and 110 kilometers southwest of the Aasta Hansteen field.

The NPD added that production license 894 was awarded on February 10, 2017 (APA 2016).

Wintershall Dea has already received consent from the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) for exploration drilling of two wells in the Norwegian Sea using the Scarabeo 8 rig.

The wells in question are the 6604/5-2 S and 6604/6-1. According to the PSA, the drilling is scheduled to start in December 2019 and it will last for at least 51 days for Gullstjerne.

As for the rig, Scarabeo 8 is a semi-submersible drilling rig of the Moss CS50 MKII type, operated by Saipem Norge. It was built in Russia and Italy and put into service in 2012.

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