Equinor, Aker BP drill dry hole southwest of Oseberg field
Equinor Energy AS, drilling on behalf of North Sea production license PL 035 operator Aker BP ASA, encountered a dry hole in exploration well 30/11-15, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said in a release Sept. 22.
The primary exploration target was to prove petroleum in Lower Jurassic reservoir rocks in the Statfjord group. The secondary target was sampling and logging previously proven petroleum deposits from the Middle Jurassic Brent group.
The exploration well, the 14th in the license, was drilled about 25 km southwest of Equinor-operated Oseberg field and 150 km west of Bergen by the Deepsea Stavanger drilling rig to a vertical depth of 4,620 m subsea in water depth of 106 m. It was terminated in the Eiriksson formation in the Lower Jurassic.
The well encountered the Statfjord group at about 382 m with reservoir rocks totaling 58 m with poor reservoir quality. Data acquisition was carried out. The well also encountered the Brent group with reservoir properties and hydrocarbon columns as expected. The discovery in well 30/11-8 S was proven in 2011. Data acquisition was also carried out in the Brent group.
The well has been permanently plugged.
Aker BP is operator of PL 035 in a 50-50 joint venture with Equinor.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
