Equinor and partners Petoro and TotalEnergies have made an oil and gas discovery near the Oseberg field in the North Sea, with preliminary recoverable volumes estimated at 19–50 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe).
The Grimsnes discovery was made by exploration well 30/8-7 S in production licence PL 190.
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The Deepsea Bergen rig drilled the well, which encountered hydrocarbons. The well lies roughly 15km south-west of the Oseberg Sør platform and 145km west of Bergen.
The partners are considering a development tied back to existing subsea facilities, with production routed through the Oseberg Sør platform.
Equinor said it expects the partnership to take an investment decision as early as next summer, with start-up targeted within three years.
Equinor exploration and production west senior vice-president Frode Skarstein said: “This confirms that the area around the Oseberg field remains very attractive.
“We plan to quickly tie the discovery back to existing subsea facilities and produce the volumes through the Oseberg Sør platform.
“By making use of already paid for infrastructure we achieve good resource utilisation and competitive barrels.”
According to Equinor, Grimsnes is most likely to use two or three wells on a standard four-slot template. The discovery will now be assessed towards a decision to proceed.
The company plans to begin procuring subsea production equipment early next year, before the project receives sanction.
It said standardised equipment could be reassigned to another project if the Grimsnes development is not sanctioned by the partners or approved by the authorities.
Equinor said Norwegian supplies cover 20% of Europe’s oil demand and 30% of its gas demand, while output from established fields is declining as they mature.
The company expects to drill 200 near-field exploration wells and deliver around 75 subsea developments by 2035.
It has also set an ambition to maintain Norwegian Continental Shelf production at 1.3mboe per day in 2035. It expects new wells and developments to account for around 70% of that volume.
In a separate development, Equinor signed a five-year contract with Dutch energy company Eneco to deliver roughly 9TW-hours of natural gas per year, or around 900 million cubic metres, with supplies having commenced on 1 October.
