6507/5-3

General

Production License 212 was part of the 15th Licensing Round awarded in 1996 and covers blocks 6507/5 and 6507/6. The primary target of well 6507/5-3 was the Snadd Prospect, defined as a combined stratigraphic and structural trap with reservoir provided by turbidite sandstones of the Upper Cretaceous Lysing Formation. The well was further designed to provide adequate geoscience and engineering data to allow a confident decision for future activity on the Snadd Prospect, and a Skarv Area development plan.

Operations and results

Wildcat well 6507/5-3 was spudded with the drill ship "West Navion" on the 15 May 2000. While opening the 12 1/4" pilot hole to 36", the drill string stalled out and spun back freely resulting in the BHA being dropped to the seabed. Attempts to recover the fish were made, but were unsuccessful. The rig was moved 11.6 m to the southwest and the well was re-spudded on the 19th May 2000 and drilled to TD at 3000 m in the Cretaceous Lange Formation. The well was drilled with seawater and bentonite hi-vis pills down to 695 m and with KCl/Glycol mud from 695 m to TD. The well came in as a gas discovery with the majority of the reservoir and hydrocarbon parameters within the pre-drill prognosed range. It was the first Cretaceous discovery in the Nordland area not found by chance. Top reservoir came in at a depth of 2837.5 m. The well encountered a gross reservoir section of 55.2 m with a gas water contact clearly visible on log and pressure data. The net pay in the well is 37.2 m with a net to gross ratio of 67%. Average porosity in the pay zone is 24% with average water saturation at 36%. Coring gave four short cores from the Lysing Formation in the interval 2836.5 m to 2855 m (2841.7 m to 2859.4 m loggers depth), with 54% to 100% recovery. Several technical problems were encountered during coring. Three MDT fluid samples were recovered from the Lysing Formation. Of these, two samples at 2843 m and 2864.5 m c