Equinor has announced a commercial oil discovery in the Norwegian North Sea’s Snorre area, with estimates indicating between 25 and 89 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent.
Dubbed Omega South, the discovery was made in production licence (PL) 057 by drilling the exploration well 34/4‑19 S. It forms part of Equinor’s new approach to accelerating subsea field development.
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Located 1.6km east of the Snorre field, the well was drilled by the Deepsea Atlantic rig at a water depth of 381m.
Equinor and its partners plan to rapidly tie the new find into existing infrastructure, specifically producing through the Snorre A platform. This is expected to reduce costs and shorten the timeline for bringing new volumes online.
Partners in PL 057 are Equinor as operator (31% stake), Petoro (30%), Harbour Energy Norge (24.5%), INPEX Idemitsu Norge (9.6%) and Vår Energi (4.9%).
Equinor project development senior vice-president Trond Bokn said: “What is new is that we are now planning the field development prior to discovery. This makes it possible to bring new discoveries into production in just two to three years.
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By GlobalData“The exploration well was drilled through a foundation. The partnership plans to reuse both this foundation and parts of the exploration well in the field development, which reduces costs and enables a faster start-up.”
The Snorre field, which was discovered in 1979, has been producing since 1992. It has seen its operational lifespan extended with additional projects such as the Snorre Expansion Project, which added 200 million barrels (mbbl) and pushed the field’s outlook beyond 2040.
The existing subsea systems allow for new discoveries like Omega South to be integrated into current operations. The new discovery is situated nearly 5km from existing subsea facilities.
Equinor Norway Southern Area exploration and production senior vice-president Erik Gustav Kirkemo said: “Near-field exploration is important for extending the lifetime of fields already in operation. Since most of the infrastructure has already been paid off, these are competitive barrels.
“Equinor’s ambition is to maintain approximately the same production level in 2035 as in 2020. This corresponds to around 1.2mbbl of oil and gas per day from the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
“About 70% of this will come from new wells and developments, and we plan to drill 250 exploration wells, most of them near existing fields.”
Equinor stated that Norway remains a key supplier of energy to Europe, supplying approximately 20% of Europe’s oil demand and 30% of its gas demand. However, declining output from mature fields has led industry participants to focus on increased exploration and swift development of new reserves that can be connected to existing platforms.
The Snorre field’s current facilities include Snorre A in the southern section, Snorre B in the north and two subsea systems linked back to Snorre A (SPS and SEP).
Last month, Equinor and partners Vår Energi and Petoro concluded drilling operations at the Vikingskipet prospect in the Barents Sea without discovering any hydrocarbons.
