The explo­ra­ti­on well 7324/8-1 in the area Wis­ting Cen­tral has yiel­ded the results Sta­toil and 3 other invol­ved com­pa­nies were aiming at. The oil plat­form Leiv Eiriks­son dril­led in depths of 373 meters and final­ly rea­ched upper Tri­as­sic stra­ta 542 meters below the sea bot­tom. Lower and midd­le Juras­sic lay­ers tur­ned out to con­tain a 50-60 meters thick sequence con­tai­ning an esti­ma­ted 10-26 stan­dard cubic meters oil that are belie­ved to be explo­ita­ble.

The well will be clo­sed per­ma­nent­ly as soon as work has finis­hed. The plat­form Leiv Eiriks­son will then move on to fur­ther explo­ra­ti­on work fur­ther north. The indus­try has gre­at expec­ta­ti­ons espe­ci­al­ly for the Hoop area, that is rea­ching bey­ond 74°N and thus into the Spits­ber­gen trea­ty area. Explo­ita­ti­on in this area would not only be eco­lo­gi­cal­ly ris­ky, but might also be tri­cky on a poli­ti­cal level.

The dis­co­very was the first in the area. Well 7324/8-1 is ca. 310 km north of Ham­mer­fest, less than 200 km sou­the­ast of Bear Island (Bjørnøya). The sur­roun­ding Barents Sea is bio­lo­gi­cal­ly very pro­duc­ti­ve and an important area for fish, wha­les, dol­phins and hundreds of thou­sands of sea­birds that breed on Bear Island and the coast of north Nor­way.

Source: Petro.no