“The Norwegian shelf is becoming increasingly mature, and many areas have been explored multiple times throughout the years. In order to increase the petroleum geological understanding of the shelf, as well as avoid duplicating efforts, it’s important to share as much knowledge and data as possible. We expect this to result in more cost-effective exploration,” says Kjersti Dahle Grov from the NPD in this press release.
See also: In the forefront of exploration technology
This is the background against which the NPD is now starting to release relinquishment reports from the Norwegian Continental Shelf, following an amendment of the Petroleum Regulations. Relinquishment reports often contain not only a lot of valuable subsurface information with regards to prospect mapping and volumes, but also in terms of hydrocarbon migration and more regional geological assessments. In that sense, one could argue why these reports are only now being considered for public release.
For instance, in the UK relinquishment reports have been publicly available for many years, which no doubt has benefitted a lot of companies for their licensing round application.
Due to confidentiality issues related to relinquishment reports issued prior to 1st January 2021, only those reports submitted this year are currently available. However, following the APA 2021 application deadline on the 8th September, older reports will also be made available through Factpages. In addition to the reports being released, shapefiles of the prospect outlines and a so-called prospect summary sheets will also be included.
Malcolm Pye from 1st Subsurface went through the list of the currently released reports and noted down the areas, Quadrants/Blocks, operators and the names of the mapped and sometimes drilled prospects. There are 10 reports available for the Barents Sea, 14 in the Norwegian Sea and 16 in the North Sea. Aker BP is the champion in releasing acreage this year, with seven licences relinquished already, of which most are in the North Sea. Please see the list below.
Finse prospect
Malcolm also made a quick ranking of the most interesting prospects up for grabs at the moment. One of those is the Finse prospect in the North Sea (Quadrant 2, block 5). Relinquished by Mol in March this year, it discusses the PL808 licence awarded during the APA 2015 round. The prospects initially mapped in the licence mainly included Upper Jurassic intra-Draupne gravity flow sandstones, but following the poor results reported in nearby well 2/1-17S (Kark) in 2019, these were all downgraded.
The company subsequently focused on a slightly deeper stratigraphic interval and mapped a series of so-called basal (Upper) Jurassic prospects in the same area. The Finse prospect is thought to be the most promising of those, with an unrisked recoverable resource of around 80 MMboe. However, the company identified reservoir presence and hydrocarbon migration to still be too high and decided to drop the licence. Who steps in?
HENK KOMBRINK
