Eni Norge AS considered the well to be a so-called wildcat, a drilling in hope to find oil without prior test drilling in the field before. The well is the first exploration well in the area licensed in the 20th licensing round on the Norwegian shelf.
The well is located 185 kilometers southwest of the Snøhvit gas field and 160 kilometers northwest of Tromsø at a water depth of 1,366 meters, being the first deep water drilling in this area, reports the Norwegian Petroleum Directorat.
Norway is currently very active with many test drillings going on in the western part of the Barents Sea, an area where several discoveries have been announced recently.
In the northeastern part of the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea, the Petroleum Directorate last week completed its 82 days mission with acquisition of seismic data. A total of 13,200 kilometers of seismic data has so far been acquired.
The seismic data have been continuously transmitted to a data processing centre for further processing. Geologists at the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate will now interpret them.
”The areas surveyed this summer are not opened for petroleum activities, and we know little about the subsurface conditions there. The mapping will provide important knowledge of these parts of the shelf”, says Sissel Eriksen, Director of Exploration.
