Thursday 26 July 2018

The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway's consent covers drilling of exploration well 7321/4-1 in production licence 721 in the Barents Sea.

The purpose of the well is to investigate a prospect that the licensees have named "Gråspett".

The geographical coordinates of the drilling site will be:

73° 44' 07.76" N

21° 08' 21.94" E

The location is 120 kilometres northeast of the Johan Castberg field, 93 kilometres southeast of Bjørnøya and 309 kilometres from the Norwegian mainland (Ingøya in Finnmark).

Water depth at the site is 497 metres.

Drilling is planned to begin in late August 2018. The activity is estimated to last at least 32 days.

Well 7321/4-1 is to be drilled by the Island Innovator mobile drilling facility. This is a Global Maritime GM4000 type semi-submersible drilling facility, and was a newbuild from the COSCO shipyard in China in 2012. It is owned by Island Drilling Company, operated by Odfjell Drilling, is Norwegian-flagged and classified by DNV GL.

Island Innovator was issued with an Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) by the PSA in August 2013.