Statoil Petroleum, operator of production license 035, is about to complete drilling of wildcat well 30/11-10 that has proved oil, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said in a news release.

The well was drilled just north of the 30/11-8 S gas/oil/condensate discovery which was made in 2011, and about 25 km (15 miles) southwest of the Oseberg South Field in the northern part of the North Sea.

The objective of the well was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (Tarbert, Ness and Etive formations). Well 30/11-10 encountered an oil column of a total of 80 m (262 ft) in the upper to middle Tarbert formation and 20 m (66 ft) in the Etive formation, both with generally poor reservoir properties, the NPD said. Mobile oil was encountered in the Ness formation in good quality reservoir rocks.

Preliminary calculation of the size of the discovery is between 1 MMcm (35 MMcf) and 3 MMcm (106 MMcf) recoverable oil equivalents, NPD said in the release. The licensees will evaluate the discovery together with the development of other discoveries in the production license.

The well was not formation tested, but extensive data acquisition and sampling were carried out, according to the release.