Orlen and Shell come up empty as Tomcat drilling ops wind down

January 22, 2025, by Melisa Cavcic

Orlen Upstream Norway, part of Poland’s Orlen Group, has wrapped up drilling activities that yielded no commercial volumes of hydrocarbons at a wildcat well in the southern part of the Norwegian Sea, undertaken with one of the Odfjell Drilling-managed rigs.

Depsea Yantai rig; Source: Neptune Energy

The Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) granted Orlen Upstream Norway consent in May 2024 for the first exploration well in production license 1055, awarded on February 14, 2020, and valid until February 14, 2028. As the license operator, Orlen has an ownership interest of 60% while its partner, Norske Shell, holds the remaining 40% stake.

The Tomcat prospect, known as the 6305/10-1 wildcat well, was drilled in a water depth of 367 meters with the 2019-built Deepsea Yantai semi-submersible rig, which is owned by China’s CIMC and managed by Odfjell Drilling, to a vertical depth of 3,993 meters below sea level and terminated in the Lange Formation in the Lower Cretaceous.

While the objective of the well was to prove petroleum in Upper Cretaceous reservoir rocks in the Lysing Formation, the secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in Upper Cretaceous reservoir rocks belonging to the Kvitnos and Lysing formations.

The primary exploration target was encountered at 3,806 meters below sea level, where the reservoir zone was 118 meters thick with alternating siltstone, limestone, and some thin sandstone layers with generally poor reservoir quality. However, no reservoir was proven in the secondary exploration targets.

As Orlen Upstream Norway and Norske Shell have found no commercial volumes of hydrocarbons, this dry well has been permanently plugged and abandoned, according to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD).

Norway, which is actively seeking to boost its hydrocarbon arsenal, recently offered 53 production licenses to 20 oil and gas companies for further exploration activity on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) as part of the award in the pre-defined areas 2024 (APA 2024) round.