Spirit Energy has discovered a small amount of oil near the Gjoa field in the Norwegian North Sea.
Of the three wells drilled by Spirit, one encountered technical problems and had to be abandoned, a second ran into a 20metre oil column, and the third was dry.
Initial estimates put the size of the discovery at 300,000 to 1 million standard cubic metres of recoverable oil.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said: “Preliminary assessments indicate that the discovery is not currently profitable. The licensees will evaluate the discovery together with other nearby prospects as regards further follow-up.”
The wells were drilled by the Songa Enabler drilling facility, which will now proceed to Kristiansund for maintenance, and then on to well operations on the Snorre field for Statoil.
Arne Westeng, director of Spirit Energy, said: “Although the overall result of wells 35/9-14 and 35/9-14 A is disappointing, the wells confirm that the stratigraphic trapping mechanism for the prospect works. This is encouraging for further exploration of the upper Jurassic in this part of the North Sea. The data acquired will be valuable to further develop our understanding of reservoir quality distribution which is critical for maturation of the remaining upper Jurassic prospectivity in the area.”
Spirit Energy is the licence operator with a 30% working interest. The partners are Capricorn Norge AS with 30%, Wellesley Petroleum AS with 20 % and Petoro with 20%.
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