Wellesley Petroleum AS announces light oil discovery in the Norwegian North Sea
Wellesley Petroleum AS (“Wellesley”) notes the NPD announcement of the drilling results of exploration well 31/1-3 S and sidetrack well 31/1-3 A, operated by Equinor Energy AS. Drilling took place in licence PL923 (Wellesley 20% working interest) with the Transocean Spitsbergen rig. The wells were targeting the Røver Sør prospect and resulted in a commercial oil discovery.
Well 31/1-3 S encountered a light oil column of 47m in the Middle Jurassic Ness, Etive and Oseberg formations with good reservoir quality. An oil-water contact was identified in the Oseberg formation. 21m of gas bearing sandstone with moderate reservoir quality was encountered in the Tarbert and Upper Ness formations.
Well 31/1-3 A was drilled as a down-dip appraisal to target oil in Ness channel sands. The well encountered a 21m oil column and an oil-water contact in good quality Ness sandstones.
The operator’s preliminary estimate of recoverable volumes in Røver Sør is 17-47 mmboe. The discovery is considered fully appraised and commercial. Development is likely to be via the Troll Field infrastructure, in conjunction with other Wellesley discoveries in the area including Røver Nord (Wellesley 20%), Toppand (Wellesley 50%), Swisher (Wellesley 30%) and Grosbeak (Wellesley 24%).
Chris Elliott, CEO of Wellesley, commented:
“Røver Sør is Wellesley’s fifth commercial discovery in our core Troll area portfolio. The discovery adds further volumes to the area development project, which will improve the economics of all our Troll area fields given the larger resource base over which project costs can be shared. Røver Sør is located 18km from the Troll B facility, and derisks additional prospectivity in the PL923 licence where we look forward to drilling the Eggen and Litago prospects later this year.
With the Toppand and Røver Nord BoK decisions expected in Q1 2023, our attention is now focussed on maturing the area development fields towards concept select, together with Equinor as the project operator and our other partners.”
