Equinor Energy AS drilled a wildcat in North Sea production license 089 to prove petroleum reserves from middle Jurassic age rocks in the Rannoch formation. The license partners so far presume the discovery commercial and are considering tie-in to Vigdis field. A preliminary estimate places the size of the discovery at 0.9-1.5 million standard cu m recoverable oil.
Well 34/7-E-4 AH—a shallow sidetrack from existing development well 34/7-E-4 H and the 41st exploration well on the license—was drilled 160 km west of Florø, just northwest of Vigdis Vest field, by the Transocean Norge drilling facility in 283 m of water to a vertical depth of 2,517 m subsea and a measured depth of 4,459 m (OGJ Online, Mar. 16, 2020).
The well terminated in the Rannoch formation and encountered an oil column of about 20 m, 18 m of which are good reservoir-quality sandstone. Oil-water contact was encountered at 2,479 m. Data acquisition and sampling were carried out, but the formation was not tested. The reservoir section will be temporarily plugged back.
Equinor Energy AS is operator with 41.5% interest. Partners are Petoro AS, 30%; Vår Energi AS, 16.1%; Idemitsu Petroleum Norge AS, 9.6%; and Wintershall Dea Norge AS, 2.8%.
