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Norwegian oil and gas giant Equinor has made an oil and gas discovery in the Swisher prospect near the Fram field in the North Sea offshore Norway.
Equinor, as the operator of the production licence 248 C, has concluded the drilling of wildcat well 35/11-24 S and appraisal wells 35/11-24 A and 35/11-24 B.
Equinor said on Tuesday that the recoverable resources are estimated to be in the range of 2-6 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalent, corresponding to 13-38 million barrels of oil equivalent.
The wells were drilled about seven kilometres west of the Fram field and 130 kilometres northwest of Bergen.
“We are working continuously on keeping an exploration portfolio that forms the basis for high-value creation and in addition can be produced with a low carbon footprint. This discovery contributes to reaching this goal”, said Nick Ashton, Equinor’s senior vice president for exploration in Norway.
According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), the objective of the wells was to prove petroleum in Upper Jurassic reservoir rocks (Intra Heather Formation sandstones).
The well 35/11-24 S – at a prospect named Swisher – encountered two hydrocarbon columns in Intra Heather Formation sandstones.
The shallowest is a gas column in a 21-metre interval, 7 metres of which in sandstones of mainly good reservoir quality.
The deepest is an oil column in a 21-metre interval, 17 metres of which in sandstones of moderate to good reservoir quality.
The discovery
According to Equinor, the well 35/11-24 S encountered a hydrocarbon column totalling 42 metres in sandstone layers in the Heather formation, of which 21 metres interval were gas and 7 metres in sandstone of mainly moderate to good reservoir quality and 21 metres interval were oil and 17 metres in sandstone of good to moderate reservoir quality.
The well 35/11-24 A encountered a total gas column of 25 metres and up to 5 6 metres in poor moderate quality sandstone in the Heather formation.
The well 35/11-24 B encountered an oil column of minimum 3 metres in good-quality sandstone in the Heather formation.
The wells were not formation-tested, however extensive data acquisition and sampling were carried out.
All wells were concluded in the Heather formation from the Late Jurassic epoch at a depth of 3000-3600 metres. The water depth in the area is 356 metres.
The wells have been permanently plugged and abandoned.
The licensees will evaluate the discovery for a potential tie-in to existing infrastructure in the area.
The wells were drilled by the West Hercules drilling rig, which will proceed to drill wildcat well 6407/1-8 S in the Apollonia prospect in production licence 263 D in the Norwegian Sea where Equinor is also the operator.
