Engie Finds Gas off Norway

French utility Engie (formerly GDF Suez) has discovered gas and oil in the Norwegian part of the North Sea, 6 km northeast of the Gjoa oil and gas field which it operates.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) and Tullow Oil said September 16 that drilling and testing the Cara prospect in licence 636 in the Norwegian North Sea has been completed by the Transocean Arctic drillship. Well 36/7-4 was drilled to a total depth of 2,702 metres in 349 metres of water. 

NPD said the well encountered a gas column of 50 metres and an oil column of 60 metres with the preliminary estimate of the discovery put at between 27 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and 69mn boe.

Location of the Cara gas and oil find (Map credit: Norwegian Petroleum Directorate)

It said the well was formation-tested: the maximum production rate was 1.3mn m^³/d gas through a 76/64-inch nozzle opening; the gas/oil ratio is roughly 16,000 m³ per m³ of oil.

Partners will now evaluate the possibility of linking this discovery to existing infrastructure at the nearby Engie-operated Gjoa field, it said. Licence 636 was awarded in the APA 2011 round and this is the first exploration well on it. Gjoa started production five years ago.

Engie is operator of licence 636 with a 30% stake. Japan’s Idemitsu has 30% equity, while Tullow and Norway-based start-up explorer Wellesley Petroleum each have 20% interests.

Tullow sold its interests in four blocks offshore Norway two weeks ago to Statoil, but its stake in licence 636 (Cara) was not among them. However Tullow has signaled that it plans to divest all its Norwegian assets.

Mark Smedley