Equinor Strikes Oil, Gas in North Sea

Equinor has announced an oil and gas discovery by the Fram field in the North Sea, estimating the find’s size at 38-100mn barrels of oil equivalent.

The 2,947-metre Echino South exploration well was drilled 3.2 km southwest of Fram in waters 350 metres deep, Equinor said in a statement on November 6. It proved petroleum in both upper Jurassic and middle Jurassic targets. Work on a sidetrack well is now underway to delineate the discovery.

“We are making one of this year’s biggest discoveries in the most mature area of the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS), not far from the Troll field,” Equinor’s senior vice president for exploration in Norway and the UK, Nick Ashton, commented. “This demonstrates the opportunities that still exist for value creation and revenue from this industry.”

The discovery will likely be developed with a tie-back to existing infrastructure, Equinor said. The Norwegian state firm has a 45% stake in the licence containing the find. ExxonMobil controls a 25% share, while Japan's Idemitsu Petroleum and the UK's Neptune Energy each have 15%.

Echino South has not been formation tested, although extensive amounts of data have been acquired, Equinor said. It will be plugged and abandoned once the sidetrack is finished, and the Deepsea Atlantic rig will move on to sink production wells at Equinor’s Askeladd North field.