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Nothing commercial in Statoil Hoop program
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Statoil has completed its 2014 exploration in the Hoop area of the Barents Sea, with two of the three wells the northernmost ever drilled on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Unfortunately results of the wells were not commercial.
Apollo and Atlantis were drilled in PL615 and Mercury in PL614; Statoil is partner in the OMV-operated 2013 oil discoveries Wisting Central and Hanssen in neighboring license PL537; that discovery opened a new play in the Hoop area.
“In Apollo a good reservoir was proved in the well, but no hydrocarbons,” Statoil said in an Aug. 7 statement. “Atlantis and Mercury resulted in two small gas discoveries.”
Irene Rummelhoff, Statoil senior vice president for exploration on the Norway continental shelf, said the company was disappointed with the results, but said “Hoop is a frontier area of more than 15,000 square kilometers with only six wells completed to date, so we do not have all the answers about the subsurface yet.”
“Non-commercial discoveries and dry wells are part of the game in frontier exploration. They provide important knowledge about the area,” Rummelhoff said.
Same formation as Wisting The Apollo prospect targeted the same geological formation as Wisting Central, which Statoil said in a September 2013 release has estimated recoverable volumes in the range of 65-165 million barrels of oil, Statoil.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said the Wisting Central well targeted Middle and Early Jurassic reservoir rocks and encountered a 50-60 meter oil column; it was the first well drilled in the frontier Hoop area.
Statoil said it designed exploration in the Hoop area to maximize area knowledge and said prospects “tested different play models in varied geological settings and at different depths.”
Rummelhoff said Statoil would analyze the data from the wells and incorporate it into the company’s subsurface models.
“We have confirmed a working petroleum system in Hoop, but need to work further to understand the migration and where the oil has accumulated. We know from experience that exploring for hydrocarbons in the Barents Sea takes time and stamina,” Rummelhoff said.
Barents experience Dan Tuppen, Statoil’s vice president Barents Sea exploration, said in a question and answer posted on the company’s website that Statoil “drilled the first well in the Barents Sea in 1980” and has “been involved in 98 out of the 109 wells drilled there, and have been the operator of 72 of these.”
Tuppen said Statoil recognizes that the farther north they go, “the greater the challenges become.”
Since the drilling is planned for summer, ice isn’t the challenge, “but rather the considerable distance from land and the associated logistics that complicate the operation.”
He said the Norwegian oil industry has moved north in steps, starting in the North Sea and then moving into the Norwegian Sea and then to the Barents Sea.
“The experience we gain in the Barents Sea will also be useful for our future operations in other parts of the Arctic,” Tuppen said.
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