Statoil spuds Bister exploration well in Norwegian Sea

ABERDEEN, United Kingdom -- Statoil has started drilling the Bister exploration well (well 6407/8-7) in the Norwegian Sea, Faroe Petroleum, a partner in the well, has announced.

The Bister prospect is in PL 348/C, which also contains the producing Hyme field and the 2013 Snilehorn discovery. The licence is located adjacent to the producing Njord field (Faroe 7.5%) with Statoil as the operator of both PL 348 and Njord.

Well 6407/8-7 (Faroe 7.5%) will be targeting oil and gas in the Jurassic, Ile, Tilje and Åre formations (analogous to the Hyme oil field and Snilehorn reservoirs). There is a seismic amplitude anomaly on the Bister prospect of a similar character to the anomalies on both the Snilehorn discovery (estimated gross recoverable resource range of 57–101 MMboe) and Hyme field. There is also evidence of a pressure barrier between Snilehorn and Hyme, which contributes towards the de-risking of the Bister prospect.

The Bister exploration well, located in an approximate water depth of 260 m, is operated by Statoil (35%) using the Transocean Spitsbergen drilling rig with partners GDF Suez E&P Norge AS (20%), E.ON E&P Norge AS (17.5%), Core Energy AS (17.5%) and VNG Norge AS (2.5%).

Results from the well will be announced when drilling operations are complete.

Graham Stewart, CEO of Faroe Petroleum commented, “This is the second well in our 2015 exploration program, following the successful completion of the Shango discovery earlier this month. During the coming months we also expect to start drilling the first of two follow-up wells at the significant Pil discovery (Faroe 25%) on the Blink and Boomerang prospects.”