Third time not the charm as another well comes up dry in same North Sea area

Norwegian oil and gas player Vår Energi has found no hydrocarbons in an exploration well located in the North Sea off the coast of Norway.

After securing a drilling permit from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD) in January 2025 to spud a wildcat well in the North Sea, Vår Energi and its partners drilled a dry well on the Kokopelli prospect, south of the Sleipner area. The water depth at the site is 81 meters.

The wildcat well 7/1-4 S is situated in the North Sea’s production license 1190, in which Vår Energi holds a 50% operating stake, with partners, Petoro and Aker BP, each holding 20% interest, and Equinor with a 10% stake.

This is not the first dry well in this area, as two exploration wells were previously drilled within the same area, both of which also turned out to be dry. The production license was announced in the awards in predefined areas (APA) 2020 and awarded in 2021.

Vår Energi drilled the well using COSL’s 2010-built COSL Pioneer semi-submersible rig, which is designed to operate at water depths up to 750 meters. According to NOD, the objective of the well was to prove petroleum in Upper Cretaceous limestone rocks in the Tor Formation.

The well 7/1-4 S, which encountered 94 meters of poor-quality limestone rocks in the Tor Formation, was drilled to a vertical depth of 2,488 meters below sea level and terminated in the Hod Formation in the Upper Cretaceous. This well has been permanently plugged and abandoned.

While Vår Energi had no luck in finding hydrocarbons in the well 7/1-4 S, it had better luck in the Barents Sea, where it recently made an oil discovery in an exploration well close to one of its operated assets.