Equinor drills dry hole near Oseberg Øst
Equinor Energy AS drilled a dry hole in the North Sea about 18 km north of Oseberg Øst field and 145 km northwest of Bergen in 185 m of water. The well is dry with traces of petroleum in all exploration targets. Data acquisition and sampling have been carried out, and the well has been permanently plugged.
Exploration well 30/3-11 S (Poseidon prospect), the first in in production license (PL) 1104, was drilled by the Deepsea Stavanger drilling rig to a vertical depth of 4,593 m subsea. It was terminated in the Drake formation in the Middle Jurassic (OGJ Online April 25, 2022).
The objective of the well was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Brent group).
The well encountered about 120 m of sandstone with poor reservoir quality in the Tarbert, Ness, and Etive formations. In addition, about 75 m of sandstone were encountered with poor reservoir quality in the Oseberg formation.
The rig will now drill wildcat well 6607/12-5 in PL 943 in the Norwegian Sea, where Equinor Energy AS is operator.
Equinor is operator of PL 1104 with 40% interest. Partners are Lundin Energy Norway AS 40% and Source Energy AS 20%.
Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor
Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).