Equinor, along with its partners, has discovered oil at the Skrugard North Tubåen prospect approximately 6km north of the 7220/8-1 discovery well in the Johan Castberg field in the Barents Sea.
Drilled around 240km north-west of Hammerfest, the wildcat well, 7220/5-EC-2 H, revealed between 1.2 million standard cubic metres (mscm) and 1.7mscm of recoverable oil equivalent, or roughly 7.6–10.5 million barrels.
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The partners are currently assessing whether it would be possible to connect the new resources to the existing Johan Castberg field.
The wildcat well is the 17th to be drilled in production licence 532, which was awarded during the 20th licensing round on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in 2009.
Drilling was conducted using the Transocean Enabler rig.
The main objective was to prove petroleum in the lower Jurassic Tubåen formation.
Well data shows a nearly 30m-long oil column encountered within a 41m section of sandstone, described as having good-to-very-good reservoir quality.
The oil-water contact was observed at a depth of 1,474m below sea level, and the well reached a final vertical depth of 1,521m before being terminated in the Fruholmen Formation in the Upper Triassic. Water depth at the drilling site is 361m.
No formation testing was carried out, but samples and data were collected.
The well will now be plugged permanently and abandoned, according to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate.
The Johan Castberg field is located 100km north-west of the Snøhvit field. It includes three discoveries, Skrugard, Havis and Drivis, made between 2011 and 2013.
Authorities approved the development plan for Johan Castberg in 2018. The project comprises a floating production, storage and offloading vessel supported by additional subsea templates with 18 horizontal production wells and 12 injection wells.
Production at Johan Castberg began in March 2025.
Equinor operates Johan Castberg with a 46.3% stake, while Vår Energi holds 30% and Petoro 23.7%.
In March this year, Equinor reported two new commercial hydrocarbon discoveries in the Norwegian North Sea, with oil found close to the Troll area, and gas and condensate discovered in the Sleipner region.
