Equinor has announced that it has made an oil and gas discovery near the Troll field in the North Sea.
The size of the discovery, which was named Røver Sør, is between 17 and 47 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent, according to preliminary estimates, Equinor said in a statement published on its website. The company noted that the two exploration wells for the find were drilled by the Transocean Spitsbergen rig.
Røver Sør is the seventh discovery in the area since autumn 2019, Equinor highlighted in the statement. The company noted that it made the Kveikje and Toppand discoveries in 2022, the Blasto and Røver Nord discoveries in 2021, the Swisher discovery in 2020 and the Echino Sør discovery in 2019.
Equinor noted in its statement that there is uncertainty about the size of the discoveries, but added that an average of the different estimates gives a total volume of about 350 million barrels of oil equivalent, which it said corresponds to to a medium-sized Norwegian oil or gas field.
The company noted that the name of the next exploration well in the area is Heisenberg. Results from this well are currently expected to be ready in March, according to Equinor.
“Discoveries close to existing infrastructure are important for sustaining oil and gas production from the Norwegian Continental Shelf,” Geir Sørtveit, Equinor’s senior vice president of western exploration and production operations, said in a company statement.
“They require smaller volumes to be cost-effective and can be brought up to speed quickly with low carbon emissions. As this discovery [Røver Sør] it is close to the Troll field and other discoveries we have made in the area, we can now say that it will be commercial”, he adds in the statement.
“Equinor has initiated field development projects to coordinate the development of these discoveries by utilizing existing infrastructure in collaboration with our partners. This discovery will be part of this work,” he continued to point out.
Discovery partners
Chris Elliott, managing director of Wellesley, which is a partner in the Røver Sør discovery, noted in a company statement that the find is Wellesley’s fifth commercial discovery in its “core Troll area portfolio”.
“The discovery adds additional volumes to the area development project, which will improve the economics of all fields in the Troll area given the larger resource base on which project costs can be shared,” he said. Elliott said in the statement.
“Røver Sør is 18 km from the Troll B facility and de-risks additional prospectivity in license PL923, where we expect to drill the Eggen and Litago prospects later this year,” he added.
“With Toppand and Røver Nord BoK decisions expected in the first quarter of 2023, our focus is now on maturing the development fields in the area towards concept selection, together with Equinor as the project operator and the other partners,” Elliott continued.
DNO ASA, another partner in the Røver Sør find, said in a separate company statement that the discovery is DNO’s fourth consecutive exploration success in the Troll-Gjøa area following the Røver Nord discovery in 2021 under the same license and the 2022 discoveries of Kveikje and Ofelia. .
“One of the largest land owners in the Troll-Gjøa area,…[DNO] has scheduled five more exploration wells in this North Sea exploration hotspot during 2023,” DNO said in the statement.
The cornerstone of Norwegian gas production
The Troll field contains about 40 percent of the total gas reserves on the Norwegian continental shelf and represents “the cornerstone of Norwegian gas production,” according to Equinor’s website, which notes that Troll is also one of the largest oil fields on the Norwegian continental shelf. and that oil production in the field was over 400,000 barrels per day in 2002.
The field consists of the main Troll East and Troll West structures in Blocks 31/2, 31/3, 31/5 and 31/6 in the North Sea, Equinor’s website shows. Equinor is the operator of the Troll A, B and C platforms and onshore pipelines and Gassco is the operator of the Kollsnes gas processing plant on behalf of Gassled, the Equinor site notes. Equinor is also the technical service provider for Kollsnes operations, the company’s site shows.
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