Offshore staff
VIENNA, Austria – OMV (Norge) has notched its first oil discovery in the Barents Sea offshore Norway.
The semisubmersibleLeiv Eirkisson drilled well 7324/8-1 on the Wisting Central prospect in license PL 537, in 373 m (1,224 ft) water depth. The location is 170 km (105 mi) northeast of Statoil’s commercial Skrugard discovery, and becomes Norway’s northernmost oil find to date.
Good-quality oil was proven through wireline logging, wireline testing, and coring. The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 905 m (2,969 ft). It will be permanently P&A’d, after which the rig will spud the Wisting Main well, targeting the deeper Kobbe structure.
The main aim of the current well is to prove hydrocarbons in mid-lower Jurassic reservoir rocks of the Upper Realgrunnen Subgroup on the Hoop High area, which had not previously been drilled.
Recoverable reserves for the drilled segment are estimated at 60-160 MMbbl, with 10-40 bcf (283 MM-1 bcm) of recoverable gas. There are other equivalent segments nearby, with potential recoverable oil volumes across the license of 200-500 MMboe.
OMV (Norge) operates the license in partnership with Petoro, Idemitsu, Tullow, and Statoil. The company is also a partner in three other licenses in the Hoop High area, where further drilling is planned next year.
Angus McCoss, exploration director for Tullow, said: “This is a major frontier light oil discovery…The Wisting Central wildcat well has opened the Hoop-Maud basin by proving a new shallow play in the region.
“This discovery also demonstrates the effectiveness of leading edge exploration techniques, pioneered by Tullow’s Norwegian exploration team, that combine shallow seismic and electromagnetic survey data in the search for oil.”
9/9/2013
