Eni spuds wildcat well in Norwegian Barents Sea

ABERDEEN, Scotland -- Faroe Petroleum has announced the commencement of the Eni-operated Boné exploration well, 7318/12-1, in the Barents Sea.

Licence PL716, which contains the Boné prospect (previously named Dazzler), lies in the western part of the Norwegian Barents Sea in a similar structural setting to the Johan Castberg discovery. The primary targets for the well are the Jurassic Stø- and Nordmela sandstones, with a secondary target within the Triassic Fruholmen and Snadd sandstone formations.

Eni Norge operates PL716 with a 30% stake. Its co-venturers are Faroe Petroleum (20%), Bayerngas Norge (20%), Petoro AS (20%) and Point Resources AS (10%). The Boné well is being drilled using the Scarabeo 8 semisubmersible.

Meanwhile, Faroe Petroleum also announced that the partners in licence PL740 have committed to the drilling of an appraisal well on the Faroe-operated Brasse discovery in mid-2017. Faroe (50%) has entered into a contract with Odfjell Drilling for the use of the Deepsea Bergen semisubmersible.

Faroe announced the Brasse oil and gas discovery in July 2016. The main wellbore (31/7-1) encountered an 18-m gross gas column and a 21-m gross oil column, and the sidetrack well (31/7-1A) encountered a 6-m gross gas column and 25-m gross oil column, with both wells encountering good quality Jurassic reservoir. Total gross volumes of recoverable hydrocarbons have been estimated by the company to be 28-54 MMbbl of oil and 89-158 Bcf of gas (43-80 MMboe gross in aggregate). The main objectives of the appraisal well are to reduce the uncertainty in the reserves estimates and to provide important additional information for the development project.

The Brasse discovery is within tie-back distance to existing infrastructure: 13 km to the south of the Brage field platform, in which Faroe holds a 14.3% working interest and 13 km to the southeast of the Oseberg Field Centre.

“We are very pleased to announce the spudding of Boné, our first exploration well in 2017, located 90 km to the northwest of the Johan Castberg discovery. This high impact well will test a large horst structure with very significant volume potential,” said Graham Stewart, chief executive, Faroe Petroleum. “We are also pleased to announce the forthcoming appraisal well on the Brasse licence, which will serve to mature this discovery towards development.”