Small Find Proves Oil in North Sea's Tampen Area

Snorre A Platform
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Statoil has proven the existence of oil in a well in the Tampen area in the northeastern area of the Snorre field in the North Sea.

The purpose of the Statoil-operated well was to prove petroleum in the Upper Triassic reservoir rocks that belong to the lower parts of the Lunde formation.

The find has been named Lower Lunde, and its size has been estimated to be between 6 and 19 million barrels of oil equivalents.
The well formations are of good reservoir quality. The well was not formation tested, though samples were taken and data collected.

"Together with the other discoveries on Tampen in 2009 -- such as Vigdis Nordøst, Pan/Pandora and Titan -- the Lower Lunde find will help maintain production from the major fields in the area during coming years," said Nicholas Ashton, who is head of infrastructure-led exploration in the Tampen area.

The Snorre Unit licensees will consider tying in production from the find to Snorre. Snorre Unit, formed in 1988 around the Snorre field, covers parts of production licenses PL057 and PL089.

The well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.

Well 34/4-12 A was drilled by the Ocean Vanguard rig, which will now proceed to production license PL128 in the Norwegian Sea to drill the Fossekall prospect et on exploration well 6608/10-14 S, where Statoil is operator.

Facts:

• Partners: Statoil (operator) (31.0 %), Petoro AS (30.0%), RWE Dea Norge AS (24.5%), Idemitsu Petroleum Norge AS (9.6%) and Hess Norge AS (4.9%)
• Ocean depth in area: 382 meters
• Total well depth: 2652 meters