Hydro expects to upgrade present volumes on its Oseberg Øst field in the North Sea by up to 10 percent after a new oil find in well 30/6-E-5 on the acreage.
"Conducting exploration from an existing infrastructure is a highly cost-effective way to do the work and we plan to drill a number of such wells in the Oseberg area in the future," says Oseberg Øst offshore manager Lars Petter Lundahl in Hydro.
Production well E-5 was extended into the Beta Sadel North geological structure situated north of the Oseberg field. Hydrocarbons had not been proven in the structure in connection with the plan to develop and operate Oseberg Øst. The E-5 well proved oil deposits in several intervals within the Brent formation.
Well 30/6-E-5 was drilled to a total depth of 5,490 meters (2,991 meters total vertical depth) in the Dunlin formation. A production test is planned for the well extension into Beta Sadel Nord.
Oseberg Øst is the smallest platform in the Oseberg region and lies some 25 kilometers north-east of the Oseberg Field Center.
The field was developed with an integrated drilling, accomodation and production platform with equipment for first stage processing. The oil undergoes second and third stage processing at the Oseberg Field Center before being transported through the Oseberg Transport System (OTS) pipeline to the land-based Sture oil terminal.
Oseberg Øst's output is about 75,000 barrels of oil per day. Water and gas is injected back into the reservoir to increase oil recovery. Total recoverable reserves on the field were originally estimated at 145 million barrels of oil.
Shareholders in production license 053 are operator Hydro (19.6 percent), the state's direct financial interest (45.4 percent), Statoil (14 percent), TotalFinaElf (14 percent) and ExxonMobil (7 percent)..