Recoverable Oil Equivalent News

Equinor and partners Lundin and Spirit Energy have struck oil in the PL 167 licence at the Utsira High in the North Sea.The discovery is currently estimated to contain 15-35 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent.“We are very pleased to announce the first Equinor discovery,” said Nicholas Ashton, Equinor’s senior vice president, Exploration, Norway & UK.“This is a good discovery which we expect will be commercial. In addition, the results from the drilling indicate an upside potential in this discovery…

As Shell finishes construction on its Appomattox Semi-Submersible Platform hull, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement engineers and inspectors signed off on several topsides components during a pre-production inspection March 27, 2018. Royal Dutch Shell plc, 79 percent owner and its partner, Nexen Petroleum Offshore U.S. A. Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC ltd, will operate the platform about 80 miles off Louisiana’s coast in the Mississippi Canyon. “The Appomattox will be Shell’s largest floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico…

Exxon Mobil Corporation announced its sixth oil discovery offshore Guyana since 2015, following positive results from its Ranger-1 exploration well. The Ranger-1 well discovery adds to previous discoveries at Liza, Payara, Snoek, Liza Deep and Turbot, which are estimated to total more than 3.2 billion recoverable oil-equivalent barrels. ExxonMobil affiliate Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd. began drilling the Ranger-1 well on November 5, 2017 and encountered approximately 70 meters of high-quality, oil-bearing carbonate reservoir.

Statoil, on behalf of the license holders, has submitted a Plan for Development and Operation of the Trestakk discovery on the Halten Bank to the minister for petroleum and energy, Tord Lien, in Bodø. Capital expenditures are estimated at approximately 5.5 billion NOK. The discovery, made in 1986, contains about 76 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent, mainly oil. The project will be tied back to the Åsgard A oil production vessel, with planned production startup anticipated in 2019. “Trestakk is a good example of what is possible to achieve through spending time on working toward the best concept selection. By rethinking our concept along with license partners and suppliers, we have arrived at a solution that costs almost 50 percent less than the original concept.

Operator Statoil has together with PL713 partners made a gas discovery in the Pingvin prospect in the Barents Sea. The discovery is a play opener in a frontier unexplored area of the Barents Sea northwest of Johan Castberg. The discovery well 7319/12-1, drilled by the drilling rig Transocean Spitsbergen, proved a 15-metre gas column in the well path. Statoil estimates the volumes in Pingvin to be in the range of 30-120 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent. The discovery is currently assessed as non-commercial.

Statoil’s fast-track development projects are increasing the company’s and partners’ oil and gas production through a combination of standardised subsea development solutions and utilisation of infrastructure in a manner which helps extend the lifetime of existing fields. Production start-up on Fram H-North and Svalin C marks the eighth and ninth fast-track development projects for Statoil. "Together with partners, authorities and suppliers we have been able to develop standardised technical solutions and methods of interaction that yield increased production from the Norwegian shelf," says Statoil’s head of field development on the Norwegian shelf, Ivar Aasheim. "We have achieved a lot with regard to costs, development time and HSE.

Operator Statoil has together with PL272 partners made a gas discovery in the Askja West prospect and an oil discovery in the Askja East prospect in the North Sea. The exploration wells  30/11-9 S and 30/11-9 A, drilled by the drilling rig Ocean Vanguard, are located between the Oseberg and Frigg fields and about 13 km southeast of the Statoil-operated Krafla/Krafla West discoveries. Main wellbore 30/11-9 S tested the Askja West prospect and proved a net gas column of 90 metres in Late and Middle Jurassic rocks.

Chevron Corporation announce that its U.K. subsidiary has entered front-end engineering and design (FEED) on the Rosebank oil and gas project in the West of Shetland region. The Chevron-operated Rosebank project is located approximately 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of the Shetland Islands, in water depths of approximately 3,700 feet (1,100 meters). The project will include a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, production and water injection wells, subsea facilities, and a gas export pipeline. “Rosebank is an important project for Chevron and the West of Shetland region, which holds a significant portion of the U.K.’s undeveloped oil and gas resources,” said Brenda Dulaney, managing director, Chevron Upstream Europe.

Statoil has made a significant gas and condensate discovery in the King Lear prospect in the southern part of the Norwegian North Sea along with its partner Total E&P Norge. Exploration well 2/4-21 drilled by the jack-up rig Maersk Gallant in production licences 146 and 333, has proven a 48-metre gas/condensate column in the main bore 2/4-21 and an additional 70-metre gas/condensate column in the side-track 2/4-21A. Statoil estimates the total volumes in King Lear to be between 70 and 200 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent (o.e.).

An exploration well and a sidetrack currently being completed by Statoil near Gullfaks South have yielded the third discovery made in the Gullfaks licence so far this year. This confirms yet again that infrastructure-led exploration is important and yields highly commercial finds which can be brought on stream quickly,” says Tom Dreyer, exploration head for the northern North Sea. “We regard the area around Gullfaks South as prospective and the find confirms our faith in the area.

Communication between the Aldous and Avaldsnes oil discoveries in the North Sea has now been confirmed. In combination these discoveries may represent an oil structure of between 500 million and 1.2 billion barrels of recoverable oil equivalent. If the upper part of the interval strikes pay dirt, the discovery will be one of the ten largest oil finds ever on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS). Statoil (OSE: STL, NYSE: STO) has a 40% stake both in licence PL 265, where Aldous was discovered, and in PL 501, where the Avaldsnes discovery was made.

Oil has been proven by Statoil and its partners Det norske oljeselskap ASA and Svenska Petroleum Exploration AS on the North Sea Krafla prospect. The well is located in block 30/11 around 26 kilometres south of the Oseberg South field. Based on preliminary calculations the size of the discovery is between 12.5 and 56.5 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent. ”Statoil has had great exploration success in mature areas during the last years,” says Gro Gunleiksrud Haatvedt, Statoil’s head of exploration on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS).