A partnership comprising of Equinor, ENI and Petoro have discovered oil in the Skruis exploration well, which is located in Norway’s Johan Castberg license.
In an announcement on Monday morning, Equinor said that the discovery shows Skruis has a volume of between 12 million and 25 million of recoverable barrels of oil.
Nick Ashton, Equinor’s Senior Vice President of Exploration (Norway and UK) said this is an important discovery as it helps to determine the size of the Johan Castberg resource base which is currently being developed.
“Securing resources near existing infrastructure is an important part of Equinor’s ambition and strategy on the Norwegian continental shelf,” he commented.
“The Skruis discovery confirms the potential in this part of the Barents Sea. Over the past couple of years, we have learned that exploration in the Barents Sea is challenging and takes patience. We still have three Equinor-operated wells and one partner-operated well left to drill in the Barents Sea. We also have a good portfolio for the next couple of years. Together with the wells we drilled in 2017, this will help clarify the potential in the remaining part of the Barents Sea,” Mr Ashton said.
Image courtesy of Equinor
Moving forward, the partners have said that the Johan Castberg field is planned for start-up in 2022 and currently has full capacity up to 2026-2027. The timing of a potential development of the Skruis discovery will also be adjusted to this.
Knut Gjertsen, Project Director for the Johan Castberg development also commented on the discovery.
“Through the Johan Castberg field development we open a new oil province in the Barents Sea, enabling us to tie in this type of small discoveries that will be highly attractive when the infrastructure is in place,” he said.
Recoverable reserves in Johan Castberg are estimated at between 450-650 million barrels, but the volumes from Skruis and the Kayak discovery from 2017 are not included in this estimate.
More information on the discovery can be found here.
