No luck for Aker BP after completing Norwegian Sea well

Norwegian oil and gas company Aker BP has concluded the drilling of a wildcat well in the Norwegian Sea but failed to find hydrocarbons.

The well 6507/3-16 is located northeast of the Skarv field in production licence 941 where Aker BP is the operator. This is the second exploration well in this licence, which was awarded in APA 2017. The company secured a drilling permit for the well in May 2022.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said on Monday that the well’s primary exploration target was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks in the Lower Jurassic and Upper Triassic (the Båt Group and Grey Beds). The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks in the Palaeocene (the Tang Formation).

According to the NPD, the well 6507/3-16 encountered sandstone layers totalling about 200 metres with good reservoir quality in the primary exploration target and the preliminary interpretation is that this is part of the Båt Group in the Lower Jurassic and Grey Beds in the Upper Triassic. 2-3 metres of sandstone was encountered in the secondary exploration target in the Tang Formation, the NPD added.

The water depth is 374 metres. The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 2205 metres below sea level and was terminated in the Grey Beds from the Triassic.

Data acquisition was carried out. The well is dry and it has been permanently plugged and abandoned.

The well was drilled by the Deepsea Nordkapp drilling rig, which is now moving on to drill a production well 6507/5-A-3 AH on the Skarv field in the Norwegian Sea, where Aker BP is also the operator.