Faroe Petroleum has reported a minor gas/condensate discovery in production license 825 in the Norwegian North Sea during the drilling of wildcat well 30/6-30.
Image: Faroe Petroleum drilled the wildcat well 30/6-30 with the Transocean Arctic drilling rig. Photo:courtesy of suwatpo/Freedigitalphotos.net.
The wildcat well was drilled by the company’s subsidiary Faroe Petroleum Norge nearly 25km north of the Oseberg field centre and 150km northwest of Bergen, Norway.
Both the primary and secondary exploration targets for the well were to prove presence of gas and condensate in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks.
The wildcat well achieved the primary exploration target by intersecting a total of around 85m of aquiferous sandstone in the Oseberg formation, which was mainly of moderate to good reservoir quality.
The secondary exploration target was also met with the well encountering a total gas-condensate column of close to 55m in the Ness formation. Out of this, a 17m thick sandstone layer was found to be of moderate to good reservoir quality, said Faroe Petroleum.
The wildcat did not encounter gas/water contact. The company said that the Etive formation comprises 25m of aquiferous sandstone with most of which being of moderate to good reservoir quality.
Faroe Petroleum, in a statement, said: “Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 0.4 and 2.7 million standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalents.
“Preliminary assessments indicate that the discovery is not currently profitable, but the licensees will assess the discovery together with other nearby discoveries/prospects with regard to further follow-up.”
The wildcat well, which was drilled by the Transocean Arctic drilling facility to a vertical depth of 3466m was terminated in the Dunlin group in the Lower Jurassic. Well 30/6-30 is the first exploration well to be drilled in production license 825, which was awarded during Norway’s APA 2015.
Faroe Petroleum said that the well was not formation-tested. However, it had carried out extensive data acquisition and sampling.
The Transocean Arctic drilling rig is being used now for the drilling of the Brasse East exploration well 31/7-3 S in production license 740 located in the northern part of the North Sea, which is also operated by Faroe Petroleum Norge.