DNO Makes Gas Condensate Discovery in Norwegian North Sea

Norway’s DNO ASA has made a gas condensate discovery on the Norma prospect in the Norwegian North Sea license PL984, in which the company holds a 30 percent operated interest.

A preliminary evaluation of the discovery indicates gross recoverable resources in the range of 25 million to 130 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) on a P90-P10 basis, with a mean of 70 MMboe, in a Jurassic reservoir zone with high-quality sandstones, DNO said in a news release Tuesday.

Located 12.43 miles (20 kilometers) northwest of the Balder hub and 18.64 miles (30 kilometers) south of the Alvheim hub, Norma is situated in an area with extensive infrastructure in the central part of the North Sea, with tie-back options offering potential routes to commercialization, according to the release.

DNO has identified additional exploration prospects within the same license that it says have been considerably de-risked by the Norma results.

“Coming on the heels of our six Troll-Gjoa area discoveries since 2021, three of which were made this year including Carmen, Heisenberg, and Rover Sor, Norma opens up an exciting new play for DNO in the North Sea”, DNO Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani said. “At the risk of hoodooing our crack explorationists, the string of recent discoveries validates DNO’s offshore Norway exploration strategy”.

The Norma prospect is DNO’s first operated high-pressure high-temperature exploration well. It was drilled to a vertical depth of 15,748 feet (4,800 meters) with the Deepsea Yantai drilling rig. At 15,256 feet (4,650 meters), the discovery well encountered a 52.5-foot (16-meter) hydrocarbon column in a 65.6-foot (20-meter) gross reservoir section in Jurassic sandstones, the company said.

According to DNO, the discovery is considered a play-opener for the deep turbiditic sands in this area given the exceptionally good reservoir quality it encountered. Plans are underway to further delineate the discovery and the upside potential of the license. Before further appraisal drilling, the company will execute improved seismic imaging and remapping to identify an optimal location for the next well. Plug and abandonment operations have started this week. The Deepsea Yantai will move to drill the company’s next well, appraising the 2022 Ofelia discovery, in which it owns a 10 percent interest, DNO said.

DNO was awarded an interest in PL984 in 2019 through its wholly-owned subsidiary DNO Norge AS. The other partners in the license are Source Energy AS, Equinor Energy AS, and Var Energi ASA with a 20 percent interest each, and Aker BP ASA with a 10 percent interest.

Earlier in August, DNO restarted production at its flagship Tawke field in Kurdistan, Iraq after a four-month shut-in triggered by the closure of the Iraq-Turkey pipeline export route, due to a “strong demand for Tawke oil”, the company said in an earlier news release.

The Tawke field is averaging 40,000 barrels per day of oil, while the nearby Peshkabir field under the same license remains closed, DNO said. One-half of Tawke production is delivered to the Kurdistan Regional Government and the rest is sold by DNO on behalf of the contractors to local trading companies, with the oil transported by tankers, according to the news release.

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