Page 13 - Euroil Week 33 2019

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil
Equinor chalks up Barents Sea discovery
NORWAY
Lundin Petroleum also struck oil this well, while Aker BP was less fortunate.
NORWAY’S Equinor has struck oil in the Bar- ents Sea, with preliminary estimates suggest- ing the discovery of up to 65mn barrels of light crude.
A well targeting the Sputnik prospect at pro- duction licence 855 tapped into an oil column of around 15 metres with poor reservoir quality, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) reported on August 20. e nd was made 30km north-east of Equinor’s Wisting discovery.
“ e geology in the Barents Sea is complex, and more work lies ahead to determine com- merciality,” Equinor’s senior vice-president for exploration in Norway and the UK, Nick Ashton, said in a company statement. “But this discovery shows that persistence and our ability to learn from previous well results does pay o .”
is is not the rst well to be drilled at licence 855 since Equinor and its partners secured rights to the area in Norway’s 23rd licensing round in 2016. e group sank a well in 2017, but found only a small oil deposit that they deemed uncommercial.
Equinor estimates the Sputnik discovery to hold 20-65mn barrels of recoverable light oil in Triassic reservoirs. e well was drilled to a
depth of 1,596 metres and waters 449 metres deep, using the West Hercules semi-submersi- ble. It has now been permanently plugged and abandoned, and West Hercules has moved on to drill the Lanterna well at Equinor-held licence 796.
Equinor has a 55% stake in licence 855, while Austria’s OMV has 25% and fellow Norwegian player Petoro has 20%.
Elsewhere off Norway, Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum has chalked up a minor oil discov- ery at the Goddo prospect at licence 815, near its existing Rolvsnes discovery in the North Sea. According to the NPD, the well reached a depth of 2,443 metres, encountering a 20-metre poten- tial oil column in fractured, weathered basement rock with poor reservoir quality. e nd com- prises 1.3-10.1mn barrels of recoverable oil, the NPD said.
Norwegian explorer Aker BP also completed a borehole this week targeting the Vaagar pros- pect on licence 762, but came up dry. Meanwhile, Poland’s PGNiG secured approval from the directorate last week to sink its rst well at the Shrek prospect in the Norwegian Sea, at licence 838. ™
Week 33 22•August•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P13