Oil Discovery North of the Johan Castberg Field in the Barents Sea - 7220/5-3
Monday 29 October 2018
Equinor and partners ENI and Petoro have completed the Skruis exploration well in the Johan Castberg licence. The well confirms a volume of 12-25 million recoverable barrels of oil.
Skruis is the first operated exploration well drilled by Equinor this year in the Barents Sea.
The well was drilled about 8 kilometres north of the 7220/8-1 discovery well on the Johan Castberg oil field, and 225 kilometres northwest of Hammerfest.
The well’s primary exploration target was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Middle Jurassic Age (the Stø and Nordmela formations). The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Early Jurassic Age (the Tubåen formation).
The well encountered a total oil column of about 35 metres in the Stø formation, 30 metres of which was effective reservoir in sandstone with moderate to good reservoir quality. The oil/water contact was encountered at 1415 metres below the sea surface. Both the Stø and the Nordmela formation are a little thicker than expected. The Stø formation has about 30 metres of water-bearing sandstone below the oil/water contact, with mainly good reservoir properties. The Nordmela formation has water-bearing sandstone layers totalling more than 100 metres with moderate to good reservoir quality. In the Tubåen formation, the sandstone layers have moderate to good reservoir properties.
Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 2 and 4 million standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable oil. The discovery will be assessed with a view towards tie-in to the Johan Castberg field.
The well was not formation-tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling have been carried out.
This is the ninth exploration well in production licence 532. The licence was awarded in the 20th licensing round in 2009.
The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 1750 metres below the sea surface, and was terminated in the Fruholmen formation from the Late Triassic Age. Water depth at the site is 409 metres. The well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.
Well 7220/5-3 was drilled by the Songa Enabler drilling facility, which will now drill five production wells on the Trestakk field in the southern part of the Norwegian Sea, where Equinor ASA is the operator.
The partners will now further consider tie-in of the discovery to Johan Castberg. The Johan Castberg field is planned for start-up in 2022 and currently has full capacity up to 2026-2027. The timing of a potential development of the Skruis discovery will be adjusted to this.
Recoverable reserves in Johan Castberg are estimated at between 450-650 million barrels. The volumes from Skruis and the Kayak discovery from 2017 are not included in this estimate.
The exploration drilling in the Skruis (7220/5-3) well was started on 27 September by the Songa Enabler drilling rig. Production license PL532 Johan Castberg is located some 100 kilometres north of the Snøhvit field, with first oil scheduled for 2022. Equinor has ongoing operations on the prospect Intrepid Eagle in PL615 in the Hoop area of the Barents Sea.