The well was drilled in production licence PL 190 by the rig Deepsea Bergen and has proven hydrocarbons. The preliminary volume estimate is between 19 and 50 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent (3-8 million Sm3). The exploration well is located around 15 kilometres south-west of the Oseberg Sør platform and 145 kilometres west of Bergen.

“This confirms that the area around the Oseberg field remains very attractive. We plan to quickly tie the discovery back to existing subsea facilities and produce the volumes through the Oseberg Sør platform. By making use of already paid for infrastructure we achieve good resource utilisation and competitive barrels”, says Frode Skarstein, senior vice president for Exploration and Production West in Equinor.

Norwegian oil and gas are essential to European energy security. Norway covers 20% of Europe’s oil needs and 30% of its gas needs, but production from existing fields is declining as they mature.

Maintaining high activity levels and reliable energy supplies to Europe will require continued exploration and development of marginal discoveries near existing infrastructure. Towards 2035, Equinor plans to drill 200 near-field exploration wells and deliver around 75 subsea developments.

“To bring these discoveries on stream, we must radically change how we plan and develop subsea projects. Our aim is to halve both costs and the time from discovery to production through simpler and faster processes, more standardisation, repeatable solutions and more extensive use of industry standards. We expect the partnership to make an investment decision for Grimsnes as early as next summer, with production within three years,” says Gunnar Nakken”, senior vice president for projects and subsea on the Norwegian continental shelf.

Faster execution also means that development concepts to a greater extent will be planned prior to exploration drilling. Grimsnes will most likely be developed with two or three wells in a standard four-slot template. The discovery will now be matured rapidly towards a decision to continue, and procurement of subsea production equipment is planned early next year, well before the project has been sanctioned. Because the equipment is standardised, it can be redeployed elsewhere if a project is not sanctioned by the partnership or approved by the authorities.

Equinor’s ambition is to maintain production of 1.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day on the Norwegian continental shelf in 2035. Around 70% of this will come from new wells and developments.