Once again, the time has come to nominate the most courageous and innovative prospect drilled on the NCS the last two years, the Exploration Innovation Prize (EIP). The winner will be announced at “NCS Exploration – Recent Discoveries” conference in Oslo on May 12th. This prize is awarded every other year.
In 2018, Neptune Energy was awarded the EIP for the Cara discovery. Cara proved a 60m oil column and a 50m gas column in the Cretaceous Agat formation.
In 2013-2014 the team from Neptune Energy identified and matured Cara to a drillable prospect, integrating all available data. The subsequent well, 36/7-4, drilled in summer 2016, encountered commercial volumes of oil and gas.
The Cara discovery well is most likely a play opener as it proved that Cretaceous sandstones can make a commercial target,
The EIP is awarded to a license group, company or team who during the last two years has given a courageous and innovative contribution in exploration for oil and gas on the Norwegian continental shelf.
The recipient has matured and drilled a prospect that can be defined as of high risk and high potential. The result of the well can be classified as either dry, a technical discovery or a commercial discovery.
The criteria are as follows:
The geoscience community is invited to nominate prospects for an online poll. The finalists are selected based on the award criteria and the online poll. The winner is announced at the conference award show and ceremony.
Innovation and boldness are especially appreciated. Therefore, we strongly encourage all nominators to argue their choice in four to five sentences on WHY the nominee should be awarded this prize.
Timeframe: The geoscience community is invited to nominate prospects within the deadline of March 8.
Then, the jury selects a maximum of ten prospects for a web poll that is open for voting in April (voting period to be announced). Here, the geoscience community is invited to vote for their favourite prospect.
Out of these ten, three finalists are selected by the jury. The finalists are invited to present at the NCS Exploration Recent discoveries conference in May in Oslo. Finally, the presentations are evaluated together with the public poll result, and a winner is selected at the conference.
Members of the jury
Torgeir Stordal, Exploration Director, Norwegian Petroleum Directorate
Hege Susanne Blåsternes, Vår Energi
Elisabeth Femsteinevik, DNO Norge
Text: TERJE SOLBAKK
