Equinor Energy, alongside its partners, has announced a gas discovery at the “Skred” prospect in Norway’s Barents Sea.
The well, located approximately 23km north of the 7220/8-1 discovery well on the Johan Castberg field and 210km northwest of Hammerfest, has revealed significant potential.
Preliminary estimates suggest the discovery holds between 0.3 and 0.5 billion standard cubic metres of recoverable gas, equivalent to 1.9 to 3.1 million barrels of oil.
The consortium plans to evaluate the possibility of integrating this discovery with the Johan Castberg field.
This marks the 15th exploration well in production licence 532, granted during the 20th licensing round in 2009. The COSLProspector drilling rig executed the drilling of well 7220/5-4.
The well aimed to identify petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks, focusing on the Stø Formation as the primary target and the Nordmela Formation as the secondary target.
The well discovered a 14m gas column within the Stø Formation, comprising 70m of sandstone with favourable reservoir quality. The gas/water contact was identified at 1,849m below sea level.
Additionally, the lower part of the Nordmela Formation revealed gas in a 3m thick sandstone layer with moderate to good reservoir quality.
Above the primary target, a 14m sandstone layer from the Cretaceous was encountered, containing a 1-2m oil-filled zone in its lower section, though the reservoir quality was not optimal.
While the well was not subjected to formation testing, substantial data and samples were collected for analysis.
Drilled to a vertical depth of 2,144m below sea level, the well concluded in the Late Triassic Fruholmen Formation.
The site, with a water depth of 415m, will now see the well permanently plugged and abandoned.
