Equinor ASA said Monday it had made an oil discovery near the Snorre field, on Norway’s side of the North Sea, that could be rapidly developed as a tieback to existing infrastructure in the area.
The Norwegian majority state-owned energy major put the preliminary estimate for Omega South Alpha, or well 34/4-19 S, at 25-89 million oil-equivalent barrels.
The well, in production license 057 (PL 057), sits 1.6 kilometers (0.99 miles) east of the Snorre field in waters 381 meters (1,250) deep, according to Equinor. It was drilled by Odfjell Drilling Ltd’s Deepsea Atlantic rig.
“The new discovery will be tied back quickly to existing subsea facilities and produced through the Snorre A platform”, Erik Gustav Kirkemo, Equinor senior vice president for the Southern Area in Exploration and Production Norway, said in a company statement.
“Near-field exploration is important for extending the lifetime of fields already in operation. Since most of the infrastructure has already been paid off, these are competitive barrels”.
Kirkemo added, “Equinor’s ambition is to maintain approximately the same production level in 2035 as in 2020. This corresponds to around 1.2 million barrels of oil and gas per day from the Norwegian continental shelf. About 70 percent of this will come from new wells and developments, and we plan to drill 250 exploration wells, most of them near existing fields”.
Equinor said Omega South Alpha would be a pilot for a faster and more cost-efficient development of subsea fields on the Norwegian continental shelf.
“What is new is that we are now planning the field development prior to discovery”, said Trond Bokn, Equinor senior vice president for project development. “This makes it possible to bring new discoveries into production in just two to three years.
“The exploration well was drilled through a foundation. The partnership plans to reuse both this foundation and parts of the exploration well in the field development, which reduces costs and enables a faster start-up”.
Equinor noted production from the Nordic country’s existing fields is declining. To support Norway’s role in the energy security of Europe, where it accounts for 20 percent of gas demand, the country should “increase exploration activity and accelerate the development of new discoveries that can be tied back to existing fields”, Equinor said.
Snorre was discovered 1979 and put into production 1992. It has remaining reserves of 74.6 million cubic meters of oil equivalent, according to government website Norskpetroleum.no.
Equinor operates PL 057 with a 31 percent stake through Equinor Energy AS. Petoro AS, also owned by the Norwegian government, holds 30 percent. Harbour Energy Norge AS has 24.5 percent, INPEX Idemitsu Norge AS 9.6 percent and Vår Energi ASA 4.9 percent.
To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com
What do you think? We’d love to hear from you, join the conversation on the
Rigzone Energy Network.
The Rigzone Energy Network is a new social experience created for you and all energy professionals to Speak Up about our industry, share knowledge, connect with peers and industry insiders and engage in a professional community that will empower your career in energy.
element
var scriptTag = document.createElement(‘script’);
scriptTag.src = url;
scriptTag.async = true;
scriptTag.onload = implementationCode;
scriptTag.onreadystatechange = implementationCode;
location.appendChild(scriptTag);
};
var div = document.getElementById(‘rigzonelogo’);
div.innerHTML += ” +
‘
‘ +
”;
var initJobSearch = function () {
////console.log(“call back”);
}
var addMetaPixel = function () {
if (-1 > -1 || -1 > -1) {
/*Meta Pixel Code*/
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1517407191885185’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
/*End Meta Pixel Code*/
} else if (0 > -1 && 82 > -1)
{
/*Meta Pixel Code*/
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1517407191885185’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
/*End Meta Pixel Code*/
}
}
// function gtmFunctionForLayout()
// {
//loadJS(“https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-K6ZDLWV6VX”, initJobSearch, document.body);
//}
// window.onload = (e => {
// setTimeout(
// function () {
// document.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”, function () {
// // Select all anchor elements with class ‘ui-tabs-anchor’
// const anchors = document.querySelectorAll(‘a .ui-tabs-anchor’);
// // Loop through each anchor and remove the role attribute if it is set to “presentation”
// anchors.forEach(anchor => {
// if (anchor.getAttribute(‘role’) === ‘presentation’) {
// anchor.removeAttribute(‘role’);
// }
// });
// });
// }
// , 200);
//});
