Wintershall has made what appears to be a promising oil discovery in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea with its 35/9-7 wildcat drilled on licence PL418.
The early estimate is that recoverable reserves of up to 160million barrels of oil appear to have been found but further evaluation will be needed to establish commerciality.
The well, drilled on the Skarfjell prospect, is some 17km south-west of the Gjøa field between the Grosbeak discovery on PL378 to the south and the Titan find on PL420 to the north.
The exploration target for the well was to prove hydrocarbons in upper Jurassic reservoir rocks.
According to Wintershall, the well encountered very good quality upper Jurassic reservoir sandstone containing light oil over a 168m gross interval.
No water contact was observed, and downdip appraisal is therefore required to establish the height of the oil column in the Skarfjell structure.
Due to ongoing rig schedule commitments the well was not tested but extensive data acquisition and sampling have been carried out.
An estimated preliminary resource range is 60-160million barrels of recoverable oil.
The discovery is “likely to be commercial”, and a new 3D seismic acquisition programme over the find is already under way in order to provide better reservoir definition.
The licence group, which also includes Agora, Bayerngas and Edison, will now focus on integrating the well and seismic data in order to plan the required appraisal programme for the discovery.
The Skarfjell-1 well was drilled by the Songa Delta drilling unit to a vertical depth of 2,976m below the sea surface and terminated in the Middle Jurassic. Water depth at the site is 368m.
The PL418 licence group comprises Wintershall (45%), Bayerngas (20%), Agora (20%) and Edison (15%).