Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor has drilled a dry well at the production licence 209, in the Norwegian Sea.
The news was shared Wednesday by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, which said that Equinor had concluded the drilling of wildcat well 6305/5-C-3 H, using the Transocean Barents semi-submersible drilling rig, and that the well was dry.
The well was drilled about 137 kilometres west-northwest of Kristiansund in the Norwegian Sea, near the Ormen Lange field. The objective of the well was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks in the Lange Formation and the Lysing Formation in the Upper Cretaceous (Turonian and Coniacian Ages, respectively).
The well encountered mainly siltstone with thin layers of sandstone and dolomite stringers in both formations. Data acquisition has been carried out.
The attempts to collect pressure data and sampling indicate that the formations have low permeability and are partly tight, the NPD said. This is the sixth exploration well in production licence 209, awarded in the 15th licensing round.
Well 6305/5-C-3 H was drilled to a vertical depth of 4320 metres below sea level and was terminated in the Shetland Group from the Turonian. The water depth at the site is 925 metres.
The well has now been permanently plugged and abandoned. The Transocean Barents offshore drilling rig will now continue in the same location to drill production well 6305/5-C-3 AH.