Wellesley Petroleum AS, an exploration company focused on the Norwegian Continental Shelf has completed its appraisal of the Grosbeak Discovery in the Northern North Sea by wells 35/11-21S and 35/11-21A.

As per the announcement yesterday morning, well 35/11-21S encountered a gross oil column of 90 metres at the target Middle Jurassic Brent Group level. Within this oil column, 45 metres comprised net reservoir with ‘good to excellent’ reservoir properties.

Extensive data was acquired from the reservoir interval including a successful well test which have confirmed the high quality and good connectivity of the reservoir.

Sidetrack well 35/11-21A encountered 20 metres of ‘excellent quality’ gas-bearing reservoir and an 8-metre oil column in the shallower Upper Jurassic Sognefjord and Fensfjord formations. The updated range of recoverable resources in the Grosbeak Discovery is 53 – 115 million barrels of oil plus 269 – 432 billion cubic feet of gas.

Chris Elliott, CEO of the Wellesley Group of companies said that this is a very positive end to their drilling campaign in the Grosbeak area.

Grosbeak location image, courtesy of Wellesley Petroleum AS.

“Our pre-drill subsurface studies of Grosbeak indicated that the Brent Group sandstones were both predictable and well connected and this has been demonstrated by the appraisal wells, significantly reducing the development risk of this reservoir. The discovery of a separate, excellent quality gas reservoir in the Upper Jurassic also adds significant resources to what we expect to be a material and commercially robust future development,” Mr Elliott said.

The CEO further stated that it is particularly pleasing to have reached this point only 10 months after assuming operatorship of the PL248I licence.

“These wells conclude an operated summer drilling campaign of 159 days duration with almost 13,000 metres drilled in five boreholes and very extensive data collected from each of the five hydrocarbon-bearing zones encountered.”

“Drilling efficiency has been outstanding and was undertaken with an excellent focus on risk management and major accident prevention. We extend our gratitude to our licence partners, our network of suppliers and the relevant authorities for their support in the planning and delivery of this well programme,” Mr Elliott concluded.

More information on the project can be found here.