Total and its partners have made an encouraging discovery with the Isabella 30/12d-11 well on the licence P1820, located in the Central North Sea offshore U.K., about 40 kilometres south of the Elgin-Franklin Field and 170 kilometres east of Aberdeen. 

The well was drilled in a water depth of about 80 metres and encountered 64 metres net pay of lean gas and condensate and high-quality light oil, in Upper Jurassic and Triassic sandstone reservoirs. The analysis of the data and results are ongoing to assess the discovered resources and to determine the appraisal program required to confirm commerciality.

Kevin McLachlan, Senior Vice President Exploration at Total said the initial results at Isabella are encouraging.

“This demonstrates that our exploration strategy in the North Sea to explore for value adding prospects nearby to our infrastructure is working.”

Isabella is a gas condensate prospect, defined as a four way dip closed structure, with the updip part stratigraphically trapped against the Jane diaper.

The P1820 licence is operated by Total with a 30 per cent working interest, alongside Neptune Energy (50%), Ithaca Energy (10%) and the wholly owned subsidiary of Edison, Euroil Exploration (10%).