Equinor has made an oil and gas discovery with its Røver Sør well nearby the Troll field in the North Sea. The operator said it is the seventh discovery in this area since the autumn of 2019. According to preliminary estimates, the size of the discovery is between 17 and 47 million bbl of recoverable oil equivalent, of which the majority is oil.
The two exploration wells were drilled by semisubmersible Transocean Spitsbergen. Equinor is operator of the production license with partners DNO, Wellesley Petroleum, and Petoro.
“Discoveries close to existing infrastructure are important to maintain oil and gas production from the Norwegian continental shelf,” said Geir Sørtveit, Equinor’s senior vice president for exploration and production west operations. “They need smaller volumes to be profitable and can be put on stream quickly with low carbon emissions. As this discovery is close to the Troll field and other discoveries we have made in the area, we can already now state that it will be commercial.”
The six discoveries that Equinor has made earlier in this area are: Echino Sør (2019), Swisher (2020), Røver Nord (2021), Blasto (2021), Toppand (2022), and Kveikje (2022).
There is uncertainty as to the size of the discoveries, but an average of the various estimates gives a total volume of around 350 million BOE, corresponding to a medium-sized Norwegian oil or gas field, and the size of the Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea.
Equinor has started field development projects to coordinate the development of these discoveries by using existing infrastructure in collaboration with its partners.
The operator is currently drilling the Heisenberg exploration well in the area. Results from this well are expected in March. More exploration wells are planned in the area later this year.