Equinor drills dry hole near Johan Sverdrup

Equinor Energy AS drilled a dry hole in appraisal well 16/2-23 S and will reduce resource estimates of a discovery in North Sea production license (PL) 265, according to a release by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate Feb. 16. The well was drilled about 7.5 km east of Edvard Grieg field and 10 km west of Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea.

The exploration well, the 18th in the license, was drilled in 110 m of water by the Deepsea Stavanger drilling unit to a vertical depth of 2,100 m subsea and terminated in conglomerates presumably from the Jurassic-Triassic.

The objective was to delineate the 16/2-5 (P-Graben) gas discovery made in 2009 and to prove additional volumes of petroleum in a graben structure from the Jurassic-Triassic with better reservoir properties in the southern part of the Utsira High. The reservoir interval in the 16/2-5 gas discovery was cored in the appraisal well, which encountered graben-filled sediments with a thickness of about 260 m, with conglomerate rocks with poor reservoir quality. Traces of oil were encountered in an interval of around 80 m.

Well 16/2-23 S encountered traces of hydrocarbons in conglomerate rock presumably from the Jurassic-Triassic with poor reservoir quality. The well is classified as dry. Pressure points in the water zone confirm communication with the discovery in well 16/2-5.

The result of 16/2-23 S indicates that the resources have been considerably reduced compared with previous estimates. Before well 16/2-23 S was drilled, the resource estimate for the discovery was 1-2.9 billion std cu m recoverable gas. Volumetric revisions for the 16/2-5 discovery will be completed when final data from the well is available.

The well has been permanently plugged and the drilling rig will now drill wildcat well 35/10-9 in PL 827 S where Equinor is operator.

Equinor is operator at PL 265 (42.6%) with partners Petoro AS (30%) and Aker BP AS (27.4%).