Hurricane Energy’s Lincoln well, which is located west of Shetland, has firmed up recoverable reserves of 250 MMbbl of oil—with this being dubbed as possibly a “conservative assessment.”

The original pre-drill estimate for the Lincoln well was about 150 MMbbl.

“Our initial assessment of the drilling results will be subject to refinement by analysis of wireline and sidewall core data,” said Hurricane Energy CEO Robert Trice. “However, current analysis indicates that our pre-drill resource assessments of approximately 250 Mbbl of recoverable oil for the Lincoln prospect may be conservative.

“I look forward to Hurricane’s imminent operations on the hugely important Halifax well and to simultaneously progressing toward the sanction of the Lancaster Early Production System in the first half of 2017.”

The well is now being plugged and abandoned ahead of the Transocean Spitsbergen drilling rig being demobilized from the Lincoln well. Hurricane is now waiting for weather and sea state conditions to allow the rig to move to the Halifax well location and for the well to be spudded.

The Lincoln well is located near Hurricane’s Lancaster development and could “deliver significant incremental value via tieback to a Lancaster.”

A competent person’s report by RPS in 2010 estimated 207 MMboe of 2C contingent resources to Lancaster and noted that individual well flow rates up to 8,000 bbl/d are achievable from the basement.