Statoil has announced a new discovery near the Gullfaks Field South in the North Sea, the third discovery in the Gullfaks licence so far this year.
“This confirms yet again that infrastructure-led exploration is important and yields highly commercial finds which can be brought on stream quickly,” says Tom Dreyer, exploration head for the northern North Sea.
“We regard the area around Gullfaks South as prospective and the find confirms our faith in the area. Even though the volumes are modest compared with the large finds made off Norway earlier, this type of discovery is important for maximising the potential on the Norwegian continental shelf, and contributes to extending the production life of installations,” Dreyer says.
The discovery was made as Statoil was completing an exploration well and a sidetrack near Gullfaks South.
Statoil says preliminary calculations indicate that 3 to 9.5 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent are present, which are planned to be tied back to existing infrastructure in the Gullfaks area.
The two other discoveries made so far this year in the Gullfaks licence are Rutil and Opal.
