An exploration well with sidetrack has been drilled about 10 kilometres north of the Troll field in the North Sea. Petroleum was struck in both well trajectories.

Both oil and gas were discovered, slightly more than half being gas. The discoveries were made on the Rhombi prospect.

The license owners will consider tie-in to existing infrastructure and other prospects in the area.

“This is an exciting discovery in one of our core areas that has well-developed infrastructure for both oil and gas. We are actively exploring in this area and have made many discoveries here in recent years. We are now working on how these discoveries can best be developed to achieve good resource utilisation, good profitability and low emissions,” says Geir Sørtveit, Equinor’s senior vice president for Exploration & Production West in Norway.

This is the first discovery in this area in 2024, apart from an appraisal well in a previous discovery. The discovery is located in the part of the North Sea where a total of 12 discoveries were made from 2018 to 2023.

The well was drilled by the Deepsea Atlantic semi-submersible rig.

The license owners:

• Equinor Energy AS: 45%
• Vår Energi ASA: 40%
• INPEX Idemitsu Norge AS: 15%