Jersey Oil & Gas, an independent oil and gas company on the UKCS, has announced that drilling of well 20/05b-14 in P2170 has started. Initial operator estimates of gross recoverable resources associated with the Verbier discovery are between 25 and 130 mmboe with an estimated mean of 69mmboe. The purpose of the current appraisal well is to refine the volume range in the discovery.
The Verbier partners are Equinor (70%), Jersey Oil and Gas U.K. (18%) and CIECO V&C (UK) (12%).
The well results are expected by mid Q2 2019.
Verbier discovery
Verbier is located on the outer Moray Firth in the ‘North Buchan Trough’ and was discovered in 2017. The main wellbore encountered a water-filled sand and the decision was made to drill a sidetrack to assess the remaining potential up-dip. The side-track hit oil proving a minimum of 25 million recoverable barrels of oil.
The Verbier gross recoverable oil resources are estimated to range between 25 and 130MMboe. This wide range in resources reflects the uncertainty in the reservoir mapping, the nature of the sandstone geobodies and particularly the net-to-gross and the resultant net pay. Verbier was mapped and drilled on conventional seismic and therefore Equinor decided to shoot new Broadband 3D data (contractor PGS) across Verbier. The new broadband seismic was needed to interpret the basin infill of the Upper Jurassic: more accurate identification of sequence boundaries and the recognition and mapping of individual sandstone reservoir geobodies, variably bounded by potential intra reservoir mudstone units that act as dynamic barriers, as was found in the case of Buzzard. (Buzzard and Verbier, PESGB). This helped to mitigate reservoir presence risk in Verbier. In turn it allowed a more accurate STOOIP and Reserves estimate and it was used to choose the optimal location for the appraisal well.
The Verbier appraisal well is one out of 5 wells for Equinor on the UKCS in 2019 (Read also “5 UK wells for Equinor”).
