Norwegian state-owned energy giant Equinor has found more black gold in the North Sea off the coast of Norway, thanks to drilling activities with one of Odfjell Drilling’s semi-submersible rigs.

Equinor and its partners have made a commercial oil discovery within the Snorre area in the Omega Sør (South) Alfa prospect, located in the North Sea around 200 kilometers northwest of Bergen. The 34/4-19 S well, drilled by the Deepsea Atlantic rig, has confirmed hydrocarbons, with the preliminary volume estimate being between 25 and 89 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalents, which is 4–14.2 million standard cubic meters.

Drilled in production licence 057, which was awarded in the fourth licensing round on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in 1979, the exploration wellbore is the 14th to be drilled in this production licence. The partnership has already planned for a rapid and cost effective development to tie the discovery back to existing infrastructure in the Tampen area. The licensees in production licence 057 are Equinor (operator), Petoro, Harbour Energy, INPEX Idemitsu, and Vår Energi.

The objective of the well was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks in the Brent Group. The well 34/4-19 encountered oil in sandstone layers with a total thickness of 224.5 meters, 127 meters of which were sandstone layers with moderate to good reservoir properties. The oil/water contact was not encountered. The well was not formation-tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling were carried out. 

The 34/4-19 well was drilled to respective vertical and measured depths of 3,872 and 4,090 meters below sea level, and was terminated in the Drake Formation in the Middle Jurassic. The water depth at the site is 381 meters. The well will be temporarily plugged and abandoned.

Erik Gustav Kirkemo, Senior Vice President for the Southern Area in Exploration & Production Norway, commented: “The new discovery will be tied back quickly to existing subsea facilities and produced through the Snorre A platform. Near field exploration is important for extending the lifetime of fields already in operation. Since most of the infrastructure has already been paid off, these are competitive barrels.”

Equinor describes Omega South as a pilot for a new, faster and more cost-efficient approach to developing subsea fields, showing the way for how the NCS will evolve in the years to come. The company claims that Norwegian oil and gas are crucial for European energy security.

Trond Bokn, Senior Vice President for Project Development at Equinor, highlighted: “What is new is that we are now planning the field development prior to discovery. This makes it possible to bring new discoveries into production in just two to three years.

“The exploration well was drilled through a foundation. The partnership plans to reuse both this foundation and parts of the exploration well in the field development, which reduces costs and enables a faster start‑up.”

Norway supplies 20% of Europe’s oil demand and 30% of its gas demand, but production from existing fields is declining. As a result, the firm underlines that it is important to increase exploration activity and accelerate the development of new discoveries that can be tied back to existing fields.

“Equinor’s ambition is to maintain approximately the same production level in 2035 as in 2020. This corresponds to around 1.2 million barrels of oil and gas per day from the Norwegian continental shelf. About 70 percent of this will come from new wells and developments, and we plan to drill 250 exploration wells, most of them near existing fields,” added Kirkemo.

The Snorre field, which has been producing since 1992, has continued to receive new volumes, most recently with the start‑up of the Snorre expansion project in 2020, which added 200 million barrels and extended the field’s lifetime beyond 2040. The new Omega South discovery can now be tied into this infrastructure, which also helps reduce the total development cost.

“This is fully aligned with Equinor’s strategy to optimise the oil and gas portfolio, ensure high value creation, and contribute to a responsible energy transition. By using existing infrastructure, both costs and environmental footprint are reduced, while the resources on the Norwegian shelf are utilised efficiently,” underscored Bokn.

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