Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor has announced a find of at least seven million barrels of oil equivalent off Norway’s coast. It will operate the find, with UK-based Neptune Energy taking a 25% interest.
A drilling rig found between seven million and 17 million barrels of oil equivalent in the Sigrun East prospect. Two exploration wells were drilled in block 15/3, off Norway’s south-west coast. These were drilled in areas without a proven record, known as wildcat drilling.
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Equinor drilled the wells to depths of 3.8km and 4km, through 109m of water. They are around 11 kilometres south-east of the Gudrun field, also operated by Equinor.
Products from this field are piped to the Sleipner A platform, where they are exported.
Equinor senior vice president for Norway and UK exploration Nick Ashton said: “Sigrun East is a win-win. Exploring near existing infrastructure we prove resources that can be profitably realised, while producing with low CO2 emissions.”
Ashton said calculations showed oil could be produced at Sigrun East with carbon emissions of less than 8 kg/barrel.
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By GlobalDataNeptune Energy’s Director of Exploration & Development in Norway, Steinar Meland, said: “This is our second exploration discovery together on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) within a few months, following the Echino South announcement in November last year.
“This latest discovery will add valuable resources to the Sigrun development, which is located in one of our core areas on the NCS. […] Within a short time, Neptune will have two drilling rigs on contract as operator of six exploration wells to be drilled on the NCS within the next two years.”
The area’s licence is 36% owned by Equinor, 25% by Neptune, 24% by Austrian company OMV and 15% by UK-based Repsol.
The exploration wells were drilled by the West Phoenix rig, which will now move to drill an exploration well in licence 889, operated by Neptune Energy.
