DNO continues North Sea ‘hot streak’ with fresh oil & gas find

Norwegian oil and gas operator DNO has made an oil and gas discovery in a license it operates in the Northern North Sea using a semi-submersible rig managed by Odfjell Drilling.

According to the Norwegian firm, the discovery was made in Paleocene injectite sandstones, said to be of excellent quality, in license PL1182 S. Preliminary estimates of gross recoverable resources range from 39 to 75 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe), with a mean of 55 MMboe.

The Kjøttkake exploration well encountered a 41-meter oil column and a 9-meter gas column. A sidetrack drilled horizontally 1,350 meters westwards along the reservoir in the Sotra Formation confirmed the presence of the oil column throughout the discovery, DNO reported.

“We are on a hot streak in Norway,” said DNO’s Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani. “Our latest and most exciting discovery this year, Kjøttkake, is close to existing infrastructure in the Troll-Gjøa area, and we will be relentless in pursuing its commercialization.”

DNO received a permit to drill the wellbore 35/10-15 S in production license 1182 S with Odfjell Drilling’s Deepsea Yantai rig in early January. The 2019-built semi-submersible rig, formerly known as the Beacon Atlantic, GM4D rig is capable of harsh environment operation.

Located 27 kilometers northwest of Equinor-operated Troll C platform and 44 kilometers southwest of the Vår Energi-operated Gjøa platform, Kjøttkake is said to be DNO’s tenth discovery since 2021 in the Troll-Gjøa exploration and development hotspot. The previous discoveries included Røver Nord, Kveikje, Ofelia, Røver Sør, Heisenberg, Carmen, Kyrre, Cuvette, and Ringand.

DNO holds a 40% operated interest in the production license 1182 S, with partners Aker BP (30%), Concedo (15%), and Japex Norge (15%). Japex closed the divestments of partial stakes in the license to Concedo in February 2024, a few months after the initial announcement to do so.

The Norwegian player also made discoveries in other parts of the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), including Norma in 2023 and Othello in late 2024, both play-opening finds. Following these discoveries, the company decided to buy more producing assets to balance its Norwegian portfolio and help fund future developments.

In line with this, DNO announced the acquisition of Sval Energi earlier this month. The Norwegian player hopes to close the transaction dubbed “transformative” by mid-year. The deal is expected to boost its North Sea 2P reserves from 48 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) to 189 million boe post-closing and 2C resources from 144 million boe to 246 million boe.