The first production well on Statoil's Sygna field in the North Sea has been drilled, and is showing better results than expected.
"Logging indicates that the good oil sand is 10 metres thicker than our estimate of 17.5 metres," reports project manager Kåre Søvik.
Borgland Dolphin spudded the well on Sygna in mid-January, but has suffered major delays through equipment faults and bad weather.
The rig will be completing the well over the next few days, before moving to Statfjord North to drill an extended-reach water injection well to Sygna.
Several more wells are due to be drilled during the spring, when flowlines will also be laid from the field to Statfjord C.
"Although we've suffered a number of delays to the drilling programme, we should still be able to start production as planned on 1 August," says Mr Søvik. a