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Our Arctic Neighbors: StatoilHydro finds more gas in Norwegian Sea
StatoilHydro has found gas in the Asterix prospect, which lies in the Norwegian Sea at a depth of 4,461 feet, 214 miles west of the town of Sandnessjoen, the company said in a release March 16. Preliminary estimates put the proven recoverable volume at about 565 billion cubic feet (100 million barrels of oil equivalent) in Upper Cretaceous reservoir rocks. No formation test was carried out, but extensive data gathering and coring took place in the reservoir.
“This represents one of the bigger discoveries off Norway in recent years, and we’re very pleased with the result,” said Tove Stuhr Sjoblom, StatoilHydro’s head of Norwegian exploration.
New gas play proved “The well has proved a new play and found gas in rocks with good reservoir properties,” said Frode Fasteland, StatoilHydro’s exploration manager for the Norwegian Sea.
With its location 50 miles west of the 1,341 billion-cubic-feet Luva natural gas field, discovered in 1997, Aterix provides exciting opportunities for further exploration in the area, Fasteland said.
“Asterix will be considered for development together with Luva and the other nearby discoveries of Haklang and Snefrid South,” she said. “That could help to lay the basis for a deepwater gas infrastructure in the Norwegian Sea.”
In addition to StatoilHydro as operator, with 70 percent, licensees in production license 327B are Petoro with 20 percent and Norske Shell with 10 percent. The exploration well where the gas was found is the first in production license 327B, which was awarded as supplementary acreage in the 18th licensing round in 2007. The well has now been permanently plugged and abandoned.
Drilling was done by the rig Transocean Leader, which will now be redeployed to the North Sea to drill a delineation well on the Fulla structure.
—Sarah Hurst
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