Oil discovery in Norway / Oljefynd i Norge

On April 1st the Norwegian Oil Directorate announced that Statoil had made a large discovery in the Barents Sea north of Snövit. They stated that the field’s size was thought to be between 25 to 40 million cubic metres of oil. Converted to barrels this is between 160 to 250 million barrels. The minimum size for a “giant field” is 500 million barrels. The newly discovered field may also contain 2-7 billion cubic metres of natural gas which can be compared with the Snövit natural gas field containing 193 billion cubic metres. Naturally, the discovery is important for Statoil. During the weekend this has been big news in Sweden but if we look at the field’s upper oil reserve limit of 250 million barrels then it is equivalent to what the world consumes in about 3 days. Normally the oil industry installs infrastructure to facilitate maximal production from an oilfield that is 10% of the reserves per year. In this case this means that we can expect 50 to 60 thousand barrels per day when the field is at maximal (peak) production. Compared with the current total daily oil production in Norway this would be equivalent to about 4% of production. We were also informed that, “The well will be permanently plugged and abandoned” which shows that they will not use this well for oil production.

Norwegian Petroleum Directorate:
Gas/oil discovery north of the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea – 7220/8-1
01.04.2011
Statoil Petroleum AS, operator of production licence 532, is in the process of completing the drilling of wildcat well 7220/8-1. The well is being drilled about 110 kilometres north of the Snøhvit field.
The purpose of the well was to prove petroleum in Middle and Lower Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Stø and Normela formations). The well proved gas and oil in the Stø formation and oil in the Nordmela formation.
Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 25 and 40 million standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable oil, and 2-7 billion Sm3 of recoverable gas. Extensive data acquisition and sampling have been carried out. Further delineation of the discovery will be considered.
This is the first exploration well in production licence 532. (link to the NPD’s fact pages) The licence was awarded in the 20th licensing round.
The well will be drilled to a vertical depth of 2250 metres below the sea surface and terminated in the Snadd formation in the Upper Triassic. Water depth at the site is 373 metres. The well will be permanently plugged and abandoned.
Well 7220/8-1 is being drilled by the Polar Pioneer drilling facility, which will then proceed to the Norwegian Sea to drill production wells on the Skarv field where BP Norge AS is the operator.

Den första april meddelade Norska oljedirektoratet att Statoil gjort ett större fynd i Barens hav norr om Snövit. Man angav att fältets storlek skulle rymma mellan 25 och 40 miljoner kubikmeter olja. Omräknat i fat blir det ungefär mellan 160 och 250 miljoner fat. Gränsen för ett gigantfält är 500 miljoner fat. Det skall också finnas mellan 2-7 miljarder kubikmeter naturgas, som kan jämföras med naturgasfältet Snövit som har 193 miljarder kubikmeter naturgas. Fyndet är naturligtvis viktigt för Statoil. Under helgen har denna nyhet varit stor i Sverige, men tar vi den övre gränsen 250 miljoner fat så motsvarar det vad världen konsumerar under ungefär 3 dagar. Normalt brukar industrin bygga ut kapaciteten så att man vid maxproduktion producerar 10% av fyndigheten per år. I detta fall betyder det att vi kan vänta oss mellan 50 och 60 tusen fat om dagen på toppen. Jämfört med dagens totala produktion i Norge så skulle det motsvarar det cirka 4% av produktionen. Följande information ” The well will be permanently plugged and abandoned” visar att man inte kommer att använda detta borrhål för produktion.

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