– In 2019, there were 25 high impact discoveries globally, with the 25/2-21 (Liatårnet) discovery (80 – 200 mmboe) on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) being one of them.
During the NCS Exploration Strategy 2019 conference in Stavanger November on 21th, Keith Myers, president at Westwood Global Energy Group, presented an overview of the global exploration efforts and successes in the last five years and stacked them up against exploration on the NCS.
Westwood uses the term high impact wells on either frontier wells targeting new plays and / or wells targeted at prospects potentially containing more than 100 million barrels of oil equivalents.
– On the NCS, the number of high impact wells declined 19 % in the last five years compared to the previous five year period, which is better than what we have seen on a global scale. The discoveries, however, have dropped significant – 79 %, or 57 % excluding the Johan Sverdrup discovery.
According to Myers, Norway ranks #1 in the number of drilled high impact wells since 2015, and #2 on well costs. But with a low exploration efficiency (barrels discovered per wells drilled), the finding cost is 5,5 $/boe, which is in the bottom quartile (highest cost quartile).
– The lack of discoveries is mainly due to a lack of encountered reservoir during drilling. This is something the explorationists should take note of, said Myers.
Liatårnet was discovered this summer by Aker BP and partner LOTOS. It is located northeast of the Alvheim field in the central part of the North Sea.
