While drilling in the Barents Sea, Statoil Petroleum’s wildcat well 7220/2-1 encountered a gas column of about 85 m (279 ft) in the Stø and Nordmela formations with a reservoir quality ranging from very good to excellent, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said on its website.

The Snadd formation was found to have more varied reservoir properties, but is an aquifer.

The well was drilled about 40 km (131 ft) northeast of the oil and gas discovery 7220/8-1 Johan Castberg in the Barents Sea and about 260 km (162 miles) northwest of Hammerfest.

The primary exploration target for the well was to prove the presence of petroleum in Middle to Early Jurassic reservoir rocks (the Stø, Nordmela and Tubåen formations). The secondary target was to prove the presence of petroleum in Late/Middle Triassic reservoir rocks (the Snadd formation), the release said.

Preliminary estimations of the size of the discovery are between 1 Bcm and 2 Bcm of recoverable gas, according to the NPD.

The well was not formation-tested, but extensive data collection and sampling have been carried out.

This is the first exploration well in production license 714, which was awarded in the 22nd licensing round in 2013.

The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 1,554 m (5,098 ft) below the sea surface and was terminated in the Snadd formation. The water depth is 429 m (1,407 ft). The well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned, the release said.

Well 7220/2-1 was drilled by the Transocean Spitsbergen drilling facility, which will now proceed to drill wildcat well 7227/10-1 in production license 230, where Statoil is also operator.