Norway’s Statoil discovered a new reservoir at the Krafla area Monday during a two-well drilling program at the North Sea prospect.
Wildcat well 30/11-10 A was drilled in production license 035 to delineate the 30/11-8 S well discovery Statoil made in the summer of 2011.
Well 30/11-10 A encountered a total oil column of about 853 feet in the Tarbert formation, divided between the upper and middle Tarbert formation with columns of 360 and 492 feet.
The reservoir rocks in the upper and middle Tarbert formation consist of 98 and 180 feet of sandstone with “good reservoir quality.”
The preliminary size of the discovery is calculated at between 8 and 13 million standard cubic meters of recoverable oil equivalents.
The well was not formation-tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling have been carried out.
The preliminary gas/oil ratio is 80-95 Sm3/Sm3.
Well 30/11-10 A was drilled to a vertical depth of 12,050 feet below the sea surface and was terminated in the Ness formation in the Middle Jurassic in water depths of 344 feet.
The licensees will consider developing the discovery along with other discoveries in the area, Statoil said.
The well will be permanently plugged and abandoned.
Statoil has made five discoveries in the Krafla area since 2011 and expects total discovered recoverable resources to be in the range of 140 to 220 million barrels of oil equivalent.
“These are very substantial volumes for a mature area of the shelf,” Statoil senior vice president for exploration on the Norwegian continental shelf Irene Rummelhoff said.
Statoil is the operator of PL035/PL272 with a 50 percent interest.
Sweden-based Svenska Petroleum Exploration holds a 25 percent stake and Norway-based Det norske oljeselskap holds a 25 percent stake.
