Oil discovery near the Ivar Aasen field in the North Sea

10/02/2023 Aker BP ASA, operator of production licence 867 B, has concluded the drilling of wildcat well 25/10-17 S.

The well was drilled about 12 kilometres north of the Ivar Aasen field, and 187 kilometres southwest of Haugesund.

The primary exploration target for the well was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks in the Hugin and Sleipner formations.

The secondary exploration target for the well was to prove petroleum in the Skagerrak Formation from the Triassic.

Well 25/10-17 S encountered a 3-metre oil column in the Hugin Formation totalling 98 metres, 80 metres of which was sandstone of moderate reservoir quality. The oil/water contact was encountered at 3654 metres below sea level. In addition, residual oil (remaining petroleum) was encountered both over and under the oil column in the Hugin and Sleipner formations. The Skagerrak Formation was water-bearing.

Preliminary estimates place the size of the discovery between 0.5 and 1.4 million Sm3 of recoverable oil equivalent. Initial assessments show that the discovery is not profitable at the present time.

The well was not formation-tested, but data acquisition and sampling were carried out.

This is the first exploration well in production licence 867 B, which was awarded in APA 2019.

Well 25/10-17 S was drilled to a vertical depth of 4057 metres below sea level and was terminated in the Skagerrak Formation in the Upper Triassic.

Water depth at the site is 116 metres. The well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.

Well 25/10-17 S was drilled by the Scarabeo 8 drilling facility, which will now drill wildcat well 16/1-25 S in production licence 1141 in the North Sea, where AkerBP ASA is the operator.

Updated: 10/02/2023