Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. has recently announced that its subsidiary, Idemitsu Snorre Oil Development Co., Ltd. has discovered, through Idemitsu Petroleum Norge AS (Managing Director: Hiroshi Arikawa), an accumulation of oil and gas by the exploration well 36/7-4 in the “Cara” structure in PL 636, in which the company owns a 30% interest.
The Cara structure is located in the Norwegian North Sea, approximately 35 km from the nearest shore. The water depth is 349 m. The 36/7-4 is the first exploration well in PL 636. The license was awarded in APA 2011. The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 2,702 m below mean sea level, and encountered a 50 m gas column and an approximately 60 m oil column in the Lower Cretaceous Agat Formation. A successful formation test was carried out and recorded a maximum production rate of approximately 1.3 million Sm3 gas per day.
The provisionally estimated range of recoverable resources in the Cara discovery is 27-69 million standard barrels of oil equivalent (Idemitsu’s share is about 8-21 million standard barrels of oil equivalent). The partners will evaluate the possibility to tie the discovery back to existing infrastructure at the nearby Gjøa field.