Lundin granted drilling permit for North Sea well

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Lundin a drilling permit for a wildcat well in the North Sea.

The NPD said on Tuesday that the wildcat well, designated 16/1-31 S, would be drilled from the Leiv Eiriksson drilling rig after concluding the drilling of wildcat well 7121/1-2 S in the Barents Sea.

The drilling program for well 16/1-31 S relates to the drilling of wildcat wells in production license 338 located in the North Sea, where Lundin Norway is the operator with an ownership interest of 65 percent. Other licensees are OMV and Wintershall with 20 and 15 percent interests, respectively.

The area in this license consists of a part of block 16/1. The well will be drilled about four kilometers northeast of the Edvard Grieg facility in the central part of the North Sea.

Production license 338 was awarded on December 17, 2004 (APA 2004). This is the 11th exploration well to be drilled in the current license, but wildcat wells have previously been drilled within the license area.

It is worth reminding that Lundin already received consent from Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) for to use the Ocean Rig-owned Leiv Eiriksson semi-submersible drilling rig on the 16/1-31 S and 16/1-31 A wells.

As for the rig, the Leiv Eiriksson is a drilling rig of the SS Trosvik Bingo 9000 type, owned and operated by Ocean Rig. Leiv Eiriksson was issued with an Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) by the PSA in July 2008.