Lundin Petroleum has completed extended production testing at its Alta appraisal well 7220/11-5 in the southern Barents Sea.
Located 4 km south of the original Alta discovery well, the well is the fifth to be drilled on Alta – 700 metres horizontally in the oil zone.
Drilling and testing was carried out by semi-submersible drilling rig Leiv Eiriksson, with production volumes flowing via a flexible flowline to the Teekay Scott Spirit tanker before reaching the Mongstad oil terminal on the west coast of Norway.
The test occurred over a two month period, with the first stage – 30 days – providing a constrained rate of 7,500 barrels of oil per day (bopd) and the second period flowing rates of up to 18,000.
This resulted in a total of 675,000 barrels being produced.
Extensive data acquisition and sampling were also completed, including production logging.
The main objectives of the well and testing were to prove sustainable production rates, as well as reduce uncertainty around the recovery mechanism in the Permian-Triassic karstifield and fractured carbonate reservoirs. This would provide the basis to progress development studies.
Results were better than initially anticipated, demonstrating excellent reservoir productivity and connectivity to a large volume.
These positive findings are expected to increase the Alta resource estimate and reduce the uncertainty range.
The resource range will be updated in early 2019 once all new data gathered from the well, combined with the recently available latest generation 3D seismic survey, has been processed.
Alex Schneiter, President and CEO of Lundin Petroleum, said: “I am very pleased to announce the successful completion of the appraisal well and extended production testing at Alta. The results exceeded our expectations, demonstrating sustainable flow rates and exceptional reservoir productivity, which we expect will result in lifting our resource estimate for the Alta discovery.
“We have significantly advanced our understanding of this complex carbonate reservoir, the development of which would be a first for Norway. We will now concentrate our efforts on further defining the route to commercialisation and progressing development concept studies.
“Our exciting organic growth programme is delivering results with five successes out of six wells drilled so far this year. We now have a pipeline of five appraisal projects moving towards development, creating the opportunity for upside beyond our “do nothing” production growth outlook.”
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