BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 2. Equinor and its
partners have announced a commercial oil discovery in the Snorre
area of the North Sea, Trend reports via Equinor.


The well, drilled by the Deepsea Atlantic rig, has confirmed the
presence of hydrocarbons. Preliminary estimates suggest recoverable
volumes between 25 and 89 million barrels of oil equivalents
(4–14.2 million standard cubic meters).


“The new discovery will be tied back quickly to existing subsea
facilities and produced through the Snorre A platform. Near-field
exploration is crucial for extending the life of fields already in
operation. Since most of the infrastructure is already paid off,
these are highly competitive barrels,” said Erik Gustav Kirkemo,
Senior Vice President for the Southern Area in Exploration &
Production Norway.


The Omega South discovery serves as a pilot for a new, faster,
and more cost-efficient approach to developing subsea fields,
demonstrating the future direction for the Norwegian continental
shelf.







“What is new is that we are planning field development prior to
the discovery. This allows new discoveries to come online in just
two to three years. The exploration well was drilled through an
existing foundation, which we plan to reuse along with parts of the
well in the field development. This reduces costs and enables a
faster start-up,” said Trond Bokn, Senior Vice President for
Project Development at Equinor.


Equinor aims to maintain production levels in 2035 roughly
equivalent to those in 2020 — about 1.2 million barrels of oil and
gas per day from the Norwegian continental shelf. Approximately 70
percent of this production will come from new wells and
developments, with the company planning 250 exploration wells, most
located near existing fields, Kirkemo added.


The Snorre field, in production since 1992, has continued to
receive new volumes. The Snorre Expansion Project, started in 2020,
added 200 million barrels and extended the field’s lifetime beyond
2040. The new Omega South discovery can now be tied into this
existing infrastructure, helping to reduce overall development
costs.