FAROE Petroleum, the Aberdeen-based oil and gas company, saw its shares climb 10% to 138p yesterday after it said hydrocarbons had been found in an exploration well on the Fogelberg prospect in Norwegian waters.
Chief executive Graham Stewart said: “We are very pleased to announce the successful drilling of Fogelberg and the promising findings so far.
“Alongside our partners Centrica, E.on Ruhrgas and Petro-Canada, we look forward to coring and evaluation results and to making a further announcement thereafter.”
Faroe said Fogelberg was a substantial prospect and that coring of the hydrocarbon bearing zones would now be carried out in the coming weeks. In addition, it is planning to perform a full formation evaluation.
It added that the structure was similar to the recent Statoil-operated Morvin oil and gas discovery, located a little more than six miles to the south-west, which was appraised in 2006 by Statoil and is expected to come on stream towards the end of this year.
Partners in the well are operator Centrica Resources (28% interest), Petro-Canada (30%), Faroe (15%) E.on Ruhrgas (15%) and North Energy (12%).
The well was drilled by the West Alpha semisubmersible rig.