Irish explorer Tullow Oil has struck oil with the Hanssen wildcat well in the Barents Sea, offshore Norway.
The 7324/7-2 wildcat in licence 537, around 7 kilometres northwest of the Wisting Central oil discovery and about 315 kilometers north of Hammerfest, was drilled to a vertical depth of 1,679 metres.
It encountered a 20-25 metre oil bearing sandstone with good reservoir properties in the targeted Stø Formation.
It also encountered hydrocarbon bearing sandstones in the Late Triassic (Snadd Formation) and in the Middle Triassic (Snadd Formation) but in poor reservoirs.
Following initial testing the wildcat produced at a maximum rate of 2,006 barrels of oil per day (bod) and 325,000 standard cubic feet per day (scfd) of gas from a short test interval in a vertical well.
The company estimates to find up to 50 million barrels of recoverable oil in place from the discovery.
The well will now be plugged and abandoned, Tullow said.
“This success is an important follow-up to our Wisting Central oil discovery in September last year which opened up the Hoop area,” said Angus McCoss, Tullow Oil’s exploration director.
“The Hanssen discovery gives us significant insight into the potential of the Wisting cluster and further confidence that we are on track towards proving up a major new commercial oil resource.
“We and our partners are preparing to drill the Hassel and Bjaaland wells in the eastern part of the Wisting cluster next year.”
Tullow has a 20% interest in the Hanssen discovery. OMV is the operator with a 25% interest while Idemitsu (20%), Statoil (15%) and Petoro (20%) are the remaining partners.
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