The wildcat well 35/9-7 found Upper Jurassic reservoir sands of very good quality containing light oil with a significant oil column. Preliminary resource estimates range between 60 and 160 million barrels of recoverable oil. Commercial viability as well as potential further upside will need to be confirmed through appraisal drilling.
Martin Bachmann, Member of the Wintershall Board of Executive Directors responsible for Exploration and Production comments: ”The Skarfjell discovery is another important milestone for Wintershall and adds further growth potential to our portfolio on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. We are confident of the quality of our projects both in exploration and development and continue to strongly pursue our ambitious targets for the northern North Sea.”
Wintershall, with a portfolio of over 40 licenses on the NCS including more than 20 operatorships, aims to raise its daily production on the Norwegian and British continental shelf from its current level of around 4,000 barrels to 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) by 2015.
Bernd Schrimpf, General Manager of Wintershall Norge AS, states: ”The Skarfjell discovery is very exciting and the resource potential significant, although this can only be verified with appraisal drilling. Skarfjell can serve as a focus point for other discoveries in the area and will further strengthen our position in a future development consortium.”
The Skarfjell discovery is located in PL418 approximately 17 km southwest of the Gjøa field and lies between the Grosbeak discovery to the south and the Titan discovery to the north. The primary exploration target of well 35/9-7 was to prove hydrocarbons in Upper Jurassic reservoir rocks. The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 2976 meters below the sea surface and terminated in the Middle Jurassic Brent Group / Rannoch Formation. Water depth at the site is 368 meters. Due to limitation in the rig slot length, the well was not tested but extensive reservoir and fluid sampling have given valuable data on the new discovery. The well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned. Well 35/9-7 was drilled by the Songa Delta rig which will be transferred to Suncor for the drilling of the 33/6-3S well.
Current partners of the licence are Wintershall Norge AS (operator) 35%, Agora Oil & Gas AS 20%, Edison International Norway 15%, Bayerngas Norge AS 20% and RWE Dea Norge AS 10%.