Statoil and partners in an appraisal well at the Arctic Snoehvit field off northern Norway have said an appraisal well has proved an oil and gas column just 4.3 kilometres near an earlier discovery.

Well 7120/6-2 S 146 km offshore sought “sufficiently good reservoir characteristiscs to make oil production possible”, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said Wednesday. Statoil, Total, Gaz de France, Hess and RWE Dea are partners in the license.

Statoil has long sought to produce the Snoehvit gas field’s upper layer of oil and has looked for clues in the surrounding geology to tackling the thin oil layer.

Sampling, but no test, showed hydrocarbons in early and middle Jurassic rock. The Polar Pioneer semi-submersible drill rig drilled to 3,011 metres into Late Triassic rock.

The well plugged for potential later use “for injection of formation water or CO2”.

Polar Pioneer will now drill wildcat well 11/5-1 in production licence 317 of the North Sea.