Oil has been discovered by StatoilHydro in the Gygrid prospect about 20 kilometres north-east of Njord in the southern part of the Norwegian Sea.

“It’s very positive that we’ve now found oil in the Halten Bank area,” comments Rune Adolfsen, operations vice president for Njord.

“Light and fine crude from Gygrid could be phased into Njord and extend the commercial life of a field now in its tail production phase.

“I’m very pleased with the exploration commitment in this area close to existing infrastructure, and that the work is yielding results.”

Made by an exploration and an appraisal well, the discovery contains 20-30 million barrels of recoverable oil.

Neither well was formation tested, but extensive data and cores were gathered.

“It’s interesting that we’ve found oil in the same area where we encountered gas last year in Galtvort,” says Sivert Jørgenvåg, head of infrastructure-led exploration on the Halten Bank.

“Results from these two finds will be used in our further work with the prospectivity of this licence.”

The wells were drilled from West Alpha, which will now be moved to production licence 407 in the North Sea to drill appraisal well 17/12-4 for operator BG Norge AS.

Tags: StatoilHydro