With a gross mean volume of 41 MMboe, the Rødhette (Little Red Riding Hood) prospect currently being targeted through drilling well 7122/6-3S must certainly be interpreted as an infrastructure-led exploration campaign. However, if successful, the discovery can be quickly tied back to the Vår-operated Goliat field for early monetization. Partners in the well are Longboat Energy (20%), Concedo (20%) and Equinor (10%).
The prospect, situated in PL901 in the Barents Sea Hammerfest Basin and 30 km to the northwest of the Goliat field, is a tilted fault block block with faults on either side. The primary reservoir constitutes the Lower to Middle Jurassic Stø Formation whilst the shales of the Upper Jurassic Hekkingen Fm form the primary seal of the reservoir. Fault sealing is a critical element in determining the size of the closure as well.
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Newcomer in licence PL901 is Longboat Energy, who acquired 20% of non-operated interest in PL901 from Equinor recently. The depth map below has been sourced from a Longboat investor presentation and nicely shows a structure map of the top Realgunnen Group in the area of interest. It is obvious as to why the Rødhette structure was defined as a target.
According to the CPR carried out for Longboat, the main uncertainty related to the potential volumes in Rødhette is the degree of fill of the trap, which again depends on fault sealing as mentioned above. It is expected that a gas cap is present, based on a seismic amplitude anomaly, with a lower confidence amplitude anomaly suggesting the presence of an oil leg below.
Tornerose
A little further to the northwest lies the Tornerose undeveloped discovery, which was drilled by wells 7122/6-1 and 6-2 in 1987 and 2006 respectively. The 7122/6-1 discovery well found gas in the Triasic Snadd Fm below a thin 1.5 m oil zone the Lower Jurassic Stø Formation. Well 7122/6-2 was subsequently drilled by Statoil to further test the discovery, but it seems that the discovery of gas in separate pressure-isolated sands of the Snadd Formation did not further encourage the operator to progress the discovery further.
HENK KOMBRINK
