“Exploration activity is key Equinor’s new strategy,” says Kristin Westvik (Equinor’s area director for Exploration and Production North) in yesterday’s press release.
That’s not too much of a surprise, but with Equinor now openly announcing that “future value creation will largely come from increased recovery from existing fields, and connection of new discoveries close to existing infrastructure,” it means that the company is moving away from frontier exploration as a key driver to add future resources.
Learn more about Equinor’s new exploration strategy at the upcoming NCS Exploration Strategy Conference – 17 & 18 November in Stavanger, Norway.
The discovery of oil in the Egyptian Vulture prospect, drilled through exploration well 6407/1-9, is Equinor’s sixth discovery this year. It was drilled vertically to a measured depth of 3883 meters below sea level and encountered an estimated 36 meters of oil column in sandstone in the Upper Cretaceous Lange Formation, of which 13 meters are sandstones with poor to moderate reservoir quality. An oil-down-to was detected in the well at 3719.5 meters below sea level. The oil-water contact was not encountered. Equinor’s preliminary estimate of recoverable resources in the Egyptian Vulture discovery is 19 to 62 MMboe.
As partner Longboat wrote in their press-release related to the well, the oil-in-place volume has been estimated at 220 to 440 MMboe (gross). Longboat further added that conservative recovery factors have been applied by the operator in calculating these preliminary resource estimates and further appraisal will be required to understand the flow potential of the reservoir and future development wells. This could significantly increase the resource estimate for this laterally extensive discovery measuring approximately 80 km2 as defined by the seismic amplitude anomaly.
Equinor will now get back to the area north of Troll where the West Hercules rig will drill the Toppand prospect in PL630.
