Analyst skeptical of prospects for this year’s offshore northwest Europe wells
Offshore staff
LONDON – Westwood Global Energy Group expects 16 potentially high-impact wells to be drilled offshore the UK and Norway this year, targeting a total of 3.7 Bboe of prospective resources.
Three of these wells have been drilled already with one successful outcome - well 6506/11-10 in the Norwegian Sea - delivering around 140 MMboe from two separate discoveries in the main and secondary targets.
Most of the wells to come are in frontier plays in the Barents Sea, but there has also been a slight increase in tests of high-impact prospects in mature plays of the North Sea and Norwegian Sea, according to Roderick Bevans, analyst at Westwood’s Northwest Europe Research division.
However, the industry’s recent track record is not encouraging, he points out.
Over the past five years there have been 121 discoveries offshore the UK and Norway, of which 41 are potentially commercial. However, only four (3%) were >100 MMboe and all these targeted play-opening frontier prospects.
Two of those discoveries,Lincoln and Halifax, were within the west of Shetland fractured basement play and are classified as non-commercial until proven by successful production tests.
The other two finds, Wisting Central and Alta, targeted frontier Barents Sea plays and are deemed potentially commercial following appraisal, although yet to be sanctioned for development.
As for the 68 high-impact prospects tested in the last five years, only eight of the wells led to commercial discoveries, representing a commercial success rate of 12% for around 750 MMboe of total resources.
Last year the 17 high-impact wells drilled across the sector found only around 100 MMMboe of commercial resources – a 3% success rate by volume.
According to Bevans, the industry will hope that it is more accurate with its pre-drill volume and risk analysis this year.
05/04/2018
