Equinor’s Barents Sea oil find provides long-awaited boost for Johan Castberg project
Norway’s state-controlled Equinor has made an oil discovery estimated at 31 million-50 million barrels near its flagship Johan Castberg complex in the Barents Sea, in a potential boost for the industry’s expansion goals in the Arctic region, it said March 10.
In a statement, Equinor said the well, some 230 km northwest of the far northern town of Hammerfest, had struck a 109-meter oil section in the early Jurassic age Sto and Nordmela formations, without encountering an expected gas cap.
The announcement, cautiously worded in Equinor’s statement, could represent progress in its long search for additional resources in the vicinity of Johan Castberg, a cluster of fields discovered early in the last decade and estimated at 400 million-650 million barrels.
By Dominic Chopping Norway s Equinor ASA said Wednesday that it has made an oil discovery near the Johan Castberg field in the Barents Sea. Equinor and partners Var Energi and Petoro struck oil in exploration well 7220/7-4 in production license 532. It said recoverable resources are estimated at between 5 million and 8 million standard cubic meters of recoverable oil, corresponding to 31 million-50 million barrels of recoverable oil. Exploration well 7220/7-4 is the first of four planned exploration wells for Equinor in the Barents Sea this year, it added. Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires
26 February 2021 1:41 GMT Updated 26 February 2021 1:41 GMT in Singapore
Seven companies have applied for production licences in Norway’s 25th licensing round that comprised 136 blocks or parts of blocks – 125 in the Barents Sea and 11 in the Norwegian Sea.
The septet of bidders which applied either solely or in consortia are Equinor, Shell, Lundin, OMV, Idemitsu Petroleum, Var Energi and Ineos.
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“In this round, the announced blocks are mostly in frontier areas. We see that large and medium-sized companies with good technical and financial capacity to conduct exploration in such areas have applied,” said Torgeir Stordal, director of technology and coexistence in the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.