Equinor and its partners have made oil discovery in the PL 167 licence at the Utsira High in the North Sea.
Image: A map showing area of the Lille Prinsen well in the North Sea. Photo: courtesy of Equinor ASA.
The discovery has been made in the wildcat well 16/1-29 S, also known as Lille Prinsen, which was aimed at proving commercial oil volumes in the prospect’s main segment, as well as to determine the reservoir’s age, quality, geometry and fluid properties.
Located 200km west of Stavanger and north-west of the Johan Sverdrup field, the Lille Prinsen well’s discovery main target is estimated to contain 15-35 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent.
Equinor Norway & UK exploration senior vice president Nicholas Ashton said: “This is a good discovery which we expect will be commercial. In addition, the results from the drilling indicate an upside potential in this discovery.”
Norwegian Petroleum directorate (NDP) said that the well 16/1-29 S encountered an oil column of about 95m in total. About 17m of this is efficient reservoir in clastic rocks with moderate to good reservoir quality.
NDP said in a statement: “In addition, gas discovery 16/1-6 S (Verdandi) was delineated with 16/1-29 S, which came in as expected with a gas column of about 15 metres in the Heimdal formation in the Paleocene, with very good reservoir properties.
“The gas/water contact was not encountered. The size of 16/1-6 S (Verdandi) is unchanged at between 0.6 and 1.8 billion Sm3 of recoverable gas.”
Extensive data acquisition and sampling were carried out at the well, which was not formation-tested.
Ashton added: “This discovery has good quality and adds new volumes in an important area of the North Sea. We also see a substantial upside in the licence that we now aim to clarify as soon as possible together with our partners.”
Equinor said that the development will be considered towards the existing infrastructure in the area, upon completion of full potential of the production license.
Equinor Energy operates the PL167 with 60% stake while othe partners include Lundin Norway with 20% interest and Spirit Energy Norge with 20% stake.