Exploration/discoveries

New Oil Discovery Near Troll and Fram Area of the North Sea

Satellite discovery will likely be tied back to one of the Troll platforms.

Kveikje map

Equinor has once again discovered oil and gas close to the Troll and Fram area—this time with its Kveikje well. The find came on the operator’s 293 B production license. The company estimates the size of the discovery is between 25–50 million bbl of recoverable oil equivalent.

Temporarily called Kveikje, this is the sixth discovery in this area since 2019. Up to more than 300 million BOE were proven in the five former discoveries. Equinor is considering the development as a tieback to the Troll B or C platform.

There were several drilling targets in the exploration well. After Kveikje was discovered, drilling continued to the next target in the upper part of the Cretaceous stratigraphic sequence. Smaller deposits of petroleum were discovered but are considered noncommercial. The well has been permanently plugged and abandoned.

The well was drilled by semisubmersible Deepsea Stavanger. Plans call for Equinor to drill another exploration well in this area this year.

The 293 B license owners are Equinor (51%), DNO (29%), Idemitsu (10%), and Longboat Energy (10%).