Setback for Wintershall Dea as Norwegian well comes up dry

London — Germany's Wintershall Dea suffered a setback in its drilling campaign at production license 894 near the major Aasta Hansteen gas field offshore Norway as its second exploration well came up dry.

Wintershall Dea made the Balderbra gas discovery in March 2018 with its first exploration well -- 6604/5-1 -- in the block in the northern part of the Norwegian Sea some 105 km southwest of Aasta Hansteen.

However, the second well (6604/6-1) found only traces of gas.

"The exploration drilling at the Wintershall Dea-operated PL984 has been classified as dry," a company spokeswoman said Wednesday.

"Data collection and sampling has been carried out and the well is now permanently plugged," she said.

Norway hopes to build on the success of Aasta Hansteen, which together with satellite field Snefrid North, holds some 56 Bcm of gas.

Aasta Hansteen started production in December 2018 -- the deepest field development ever on the Norwegian Continental Shelf -- and together with Snefrid North can produce at up to 23 million cu m/d, or around 7% of NCS output capacity.

NEW EXPORTING REGION

Together with the new 480 km (298 mile) Polarled pipeline, Hansteen opened a new region in the Norwegian Sea for gas exports to Europe.

The Norwegian government is keen to promote more exploration in the area so that more finds can be tied into the 58 million cu m/d Polarled gas pipeline, which has significant spare capacity.

Wintershall Dea said in 2018 it was "very pleased" with the Balderbra discovery, particularly as it is situated near Aasta Hansteen in which the German producer is a partner.

Preliminary estimates place the size of Balderbra at 7-19 Bcm of recoverable gas.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate on Wednesday said the drilling rig that spudded the latest well in PL894 would now move to drill the first appraisal well at Balderbra (6604/5-2).

Wintershall operates PL894 with a 40% stake. Its partners are Norway's state-controlled Equinor (40%) and Petoro (20%).

It was awarded the block in Norway's 2016 licensing round.

--Stuart Elliott, stuart.elliott@spglobal.com

--Edited by Jonathan Loades-Carter, jonathan.carter@spglobal.com