Equinor made the eighth oil and gas discovery well in the North Sea area since 2019. The new discovery, which represents the second discovery of the year, is near the Troll field.

The well that has extremely more oil than gas is named Heisenberg, its volumes estimated to be between 24 and 84 million barrels of oil equivalent, with slightly more oil than gas. The discovery well was drilled by the Deepsea Stavanger drilling rig. Equinor is the operator, and DNO is a partner.

The finding is regarded as having commercial potential, in part because it can make use of already-existing infrastructure linked to the Troll B platform. Before determining whether the amounts can be recovered, an appraisal well must be performed to obtain a more accurate estimate of the size. The appraisal well may be drilled by the parties in 2024.

“Our Troll exploration play keeps delivering. With discoveries in eight out of nine exploration wells, we are approaching a success rate of 90%. We plan to further explore the area, while looking at possible development solutions for the discoveries that have been made. We have a good infrastructure in the area and can quickly bring competitive barrels from here to the market at low cost and with low CO2 emissions,” says Geir Sørtveit, Equinor’s senior vice president for exploration and production west.