Lundin Finds Oil and Gas in the Barents, Transocean Arctic Spuds-In

Utilizing the Island Innovator semi-submersible drilling rig, Lundin Norway AS announced today a significant oil and gas discovery in the southern part of the Barents Sea.

While wildcat drilling in the Alta prospect in production license 609, Lundin discovered a 46-meter oil column with an overlying 10-meter gas column with good reservoir properties, according to Lundin.  The well was drilled to a depth of 2,221 meters below mean sea level in a water depth of 338 meters.

Preliminary estimations show that the reservoir may contain between 125 – 400 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalents of which 85 – 310 million barrels of this is oil.

The purpose of the well was to prove the existence of the hydrocarbon reservoir and analyze the properties of the formation using in-hole measurement-while-drilling (MWD) tools.  It will now be plugged and abandoned.  Idemitsu Petroleum Norge 30% and RWE Dea 30% are Lundin’s JV partners at this production license.

Island Innovator will now move to the North Sea where it will drill on the Kopervik prospect in license PL265, where Lundin Norway is the operator.

Much further south, the Lundin-contracted rig Transocean Arctic spudded-in last week in the northern part of the North Sea, 200 km west northwest of Florø, Norway.  Its primary objective is to investigate the hydrocarbon potential of the Storm Prospect in PL555.

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