It was Aker BP’s first well in the region in four years, and it was made only 25 kilometers (about 16 miles) from the place where the company made a small discovery of oil in 2014.
This time, the company found only gas, and only small volumes. According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the drilling of the wildcat well revealed a gas column of about 20 meters.
Preliminary estimate is that the size of the discovery is between 2-3.5 billion standard cubic meters of recoverable gas, according to the directorate. Preliminary results from gas samples indicate that it may be in gas-hydrate phase.
Aker BP Senior Vice President for Exploration Gro Gunleiksrud Haatvedt confirms that the discovery is considered to be non-commercial.
The Svanefjell well is located about 230 kilometer north of Hammerfest, the town on the Barents Sea coast. It was drilled to a vertical depth of 700 meters below the sea surface by semisubmersible rig “Deepsea Stavanger.”
