New oil discovery in the North Sea

StatoilHydro has announced that it has found oil and gas in the Katla prospect, which lies 11 kilometres south-west of the Oseberg South platform operated by the group in the North Sea.

Oseberg Sør. Photo: StatoilHydro.

Proven recoverable volumes are 50-80 million barrels of oil equivalent, with the bulk of the resources occupying the Tarbert formation in the upper Brent group.

Oil and gas were found in this structure, while gas was also proven in Upper Jurassic reservoir rocks belonging to the Heather formation.

“We’ve had great success with exploration close to producing fields over the past year,” says Tove Stuhr Sjøblom, head of exploration for the Norwegian continental shelf.

“This is another discovery which confirms that it’s still possible to find relatively large volumes of oil and gas in established areas such as Oseberg,” she says.

The find will probably be developed and produced through a tie-in to one of the existing subsea installations in this part of the North Sea.

“Discoveries like this are important for maximising the recovery of resources from the NCS, because they help to extend the production life of installations,” says Ms Sjøblom.

Apart from StatoilHydro as operator with 49.3%, licensees in production licence 104 are ConocoPhillips with 2.4%, ExxonMobil with 4.7%, Petoro with 33.6% and Total with 10%.

Spurce: StatoilHydro.