Wellesley, Equinor Flag Successful Drilling
Norway’s upstream regulator NPD declared October 29 a new oil find and separately a successful oil and gas appraisal.
The discovery is in the western Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle, where operator Equinor has found oil on the Skruis prospect - drilled in the Johan Castberg licence (PL532). Preliminary estimates indicate between 50 and 60mn bbls of oil in place, of which 15 –25mn recoverable. Licensees are Equinor 50%, Eni 30% and Norwegian state holding Petoro 20%. Production at Johan Castberg (oil) is due to start 2022.
The appraisal is of the Grosbeak oil and gas find in the northern North Sea on PL248I, of which Stavanger-based independent Wellesley Petroleum is operator. It estimates the accumulation could now produce between 53mn and 115mn bbls oil and between 269bn and 432bn ft3 gas (7.62-12.24bn m3). Wellesley holds a 60% interest in PL248I, Petoro holds the other 40%.
Wellesley CEO Chris Elliott said it was “a very positive end to our operated drilling campaign in the Grosbeak area.” The wells were drilled about 10 km northeast of the Fram field. The original discovery was made in 2009 and the objective of two recent wells was to prove Ness and Etive formation. Wellesley said that one well, 35/11-21A “encountered 20 metres of excellent quality gas-bearing reservoir and an 8-metre oil column.” Elliott said the discovery of that separate, excellent quality gas reservoir in the Upper Jurassic formation “adds significant resources to what we expect to be a material and commercially robust future development.”
Map credit: Wellesley Petroleum