Drilling Complete on Gas/Oil Discovery

StatoilHydro has completed the drilling of an appraisal well on the Pan/Pandora gas/oil discovery south of the Visund field in the North Sea.

The purpose of well 34/8-14 A was to delineate the 34/8-14 S Pan/Pandora discovery in the northern segment of this structure.

"The area south of Visund has a considerable remaining resource potential, and we are very pleased that the expectations as to the northern extension of the discovery now have been confirmed," says the head of infrastructure-led exploration west, May-Liss Hauknes.

The well confirmed the existence of a 53-metre gas column over an eight-metre oil column in the Brent group. Extensive data acquisition and sampling have been conducted. StatoilHydro will drill a sidetrack from this appraisal well. Well 34/8-14 C will be drilled in the lower flank of the same segment. The sidetrack is designed to determine the oil/water contact and contribute to more accurate evaluations of the Pan/Pandora resource potential.

This is the 14th exploration well in production licence 120, which was awarded in 1985. The appraisal well was drilled to a vertical depth of 3,044 metres below the sea level and completed in the Drake formation in Lower Jurassic reservoir rocks. Drilled in 292 metres of water the well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.

The drilling was performed by the Borgland Dolphin drilling rig, which will now drill the 34/8-14 C sidetrack as part of PL 120 operations.
The partners in production licences 120 and 120B are: StatoilHydro (operator) (59.06 percent), Petoro (16.94 percent), ConocoPhillips (13 percent) and Total (11 percent).

(www.statoilhydro.com)