Lundin comes up dry in North Sea well

Oil and gas company Lundin Energy is in the process of concluding the drilling of a wildcat well southeast of the Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea after no hydrocarbons have been encountered.

The well 17/8-1 is located in production licence 976 where Lundin is the operator. Lundin was granted a drilling permit for this well in August 2021.

The well was drilled about 70 kilometres southeast of the Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea and 140 kilometres southwest of Stavanger.

According to a report by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), the well’s primary exploration target was to prove petroleum in sandstone in the Sandnes Formation from the Middle Jurassic. The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in carbonate rocks in the Zechstein Group and possible sandstone in the Rotliegend Group, both from the Permian.

The well encountered 18 metres of the Sandnes and Bryne Formation from the Middle Jurassic, 10 metres of which were sandstone with good reservoir quality.

In the secondary exploration target, the well encountered about 70 metres of tight carbonate rocks in the Zechstein Group. The Rotliegend Group is most likely not present in the well, but it did encounter about 60 metres of tight clastic rocks from the Paleozoic Era.

The well also encountered about 200 metres of the Skagerrak and Smith Bank Formation (Triassic), a total of about 120 metres of which were sandstone with poor to moderate reservoir quality.

The well is dry, with no traces of petroleum. Data acquisition was carried out. This is the first exploration well in production licence 976, which was awarded in APA 2018.

The well 17/8-1 was drilled to a vertical depth of 2,891 metres below sea level and was terminated in rocks from the Paleozoic Era. The water depth is 119 metres. The well will be permanently plugged and abandoned.

The well was drilled by the Deepsea Stavanger drilling rig, which is now moving on to drill wildcat well 24/12-7 in production licence 1041 in the North Sea, where Aker BP is the operator. Aker BP has already secured the permit for the well.