Oil has been found by Statoil with exploration well 6506/11-7 in the M structure of production licence 134B, about 10 kilometres north of its Kristin field in the Norwegian Sea.
“This discovery is important for understanding and developing the area,” says Ørjan Birkeland, manager of the Halten/Nordland exploration sector.
“It’ll also be significant for future exploration.”
Saipem’s Scarabeo 5 drilled the well to a total depth of 4,942 metres below sea level in 356 metres of water, and encountered oil under high pressure in Jurassic sandstones.
More than 100 metres of cores have been retrieved, and extensive logging carried out.
A production test of the discovery recovered light oil from two different reservoir levels.
The well was spudded on 15 January, and the rig is due to leave the site at the end of July.
Apart from Statoil, with 48 per cent, licensees in the acreage are Agip (30 per cent), Norsk Hydro (12 per cent) and TotalFinaElf (10 per cent).
See the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate's press release (in Norwegian only).