The Heimdal Terrace and the adjacent part of the Utsira High will be the focus of exploration, appraisal and development drilling.
Exploration
Almost a week ago, operator Vår Energi and partner Mime Petroleum (10%) spudded wildcat 25/8-20 S&A in PL027. The welll targets the Eocene King injectite prospect through the S well, followed by the A well testing the Prince prospect in Lower Jurassic Statfjord sandstones. Located between the Ringhorne Eocene injectite field in the east and Mol’s Iving discovery in the west, it shares the same drilling targets as those defined by Mol and partners before spudding the Evra-Iving well.
NCS Exploration – Recent Advances in Exploration Technology, May 19-20
VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP
Hosted by Thomas Harris Uist, Geology Advisor, Development & Production at Vår EnergiVirtual Fieldtrip 1: Global Sedimentology Analogues for the Subsurface
John Howell, Chair in Virtual Geosciences – School of Geosciences at University of Aberdeen
Virtual Field Trip 2: Understanding Structural Principals
Paul Gillespie, Leading Advisor ResGeo & Petr StructGeo at Equinor
The Use of VFT as a Tool in Exploration
Oliver Jordan, Leading Advisor Exploration at Equinor
Further appraisal on Iving
The 25/8-19 S&A well was completed last year. Only thin Eocene injectite sands (Evra prospect) were encountered when drilling the A appraisal well, whilst the S well failed to prove injectite sands altogether. However, oil and gas were found in Paleocene Heimdal, Statfjord and Triassic Skagerrak sandstones and fractured basement. A volume estimate was given for the Triassic Skagerrak accumulation only, amounting to 13 to 70 MMboe of recoverable resource.
Earlier this year, Mol applied for permission to drill two appraisal wells (25/8-21 and 25/8-22) on Iving. The 21 well is planned to drill a 1000 m horizontal section following a successful pilot hole. In the 22 well, following a pilot hole, two sidetracks are planned of which one will also have a horizontal section of more than 1000 m.
This is quite a serious appraisal campaign, which may suggest that the partnership is hopeful that the volumes quoted for the Triassic accumulation is only part of the prize and that there may be a little more to prove.
Development drilling
A little further to the east, development drilling on the Ringhorne and Balder field cluster is already ongoing and will continue for a while to come.
The Ringhorne Phase III program entails drilling seven new producers and 1 injector that started in December 2020 and will continue to Q2 2022. Furthermore, operator Var Energy is planning the Balder X project, which consists of 13 new development wells to be drilled in the Balder field and another five wells on Ringhorne. The reserves tapped into through the Balder X project is estimated to be 159 MMboe.
HENK KOMBRINK
For clarity, the map above only shows exploration wells.
