OMV gains permit for Wisting appraisal well

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted OMV a drilling permit for an appraisal well on the Wisting discovery in the Barents Sea, offshore Norway. 

The well 7324/8-3 will be drilled from the Island Innovator semi-submersible drilling rig for the use of which the oil company gained consent from the Petroleum Safety Authority in early July. The one-well drilling contract was awarded in late June.

The rig is a Global Maritime GM4000 type, delivered by the COSCO shipyard in China in 2012. It is owned by Island Drilling Company and operated by Odfjell Drilling.

The directorate said on Tuesday that the drilling program for the well relates to the drilling of an appraisal well in production license 537.

OMV’s Norwegian subsidiary, OMV (Norge) AS, is the operator with an ownership interest of 25 per cent. Other licensees are Statoil Petroleum (35 percent), Idemitsu Petroleum Norge (20 percent) and Petoro (20 percent).

The area in this license consists of parts of block 7324/7 and block 7324/8. The well will be drilled on the Wisting discovery, approx. 260 kilometers off the coast. Production license 537 was awarded on May 15, 2009. This is the sixth well to be drilled in the license.

According to reports from late last year, the Wisting discovery might hold more than one billion barrels of oil. The discovery was made back in 2013 with several successful appraisal wells completed after the initial discovery.

OMV plans to drill the sixth well in the Wisting license in the third quarter of 2017. This appraisal well is called Wisting Central III and is located in the same area as Wisting Central II. According to OMV, the objective of the well is to gather further information about the structure in connection to the plan of developing Wisting.

Offshore Energy Today Staff