16/1-20 A

General

Well 16/1-20 A was drilled on the Asha East prospect about two and a half kilometres east of appraisal wells 16/1-16 and 16/1-16 A on the Ivar Aasen field, and about three kilometres north of the Edvard Grieg field in the central part of the North Sea. The well is an appraisal well to the 16/1-16 Asha Discovery and the primary objective was to investigate if the hydrocarbon accumulation in the Hugin found in the Asha well spilled eastwards into the fault bound dip closure against the Utsira High Fault. Secondary target were younger sands of Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age.

Operations and results

Appraisal well 16/1-20 A was drilled with the semi-submersible installation Borgland Dolphin. It was drilled in tandem with the 16/1-19 S Amol well. After drilling the 16/1-19 S Amol well to 604 m and set 13 3/8" casing at 597 m, the Amol well was suspended in order to drill 16/1-20 A Asha East 12 1/4" section. Drilling operations on Asha East were severely hampered by hole stability problems in the 12 1/4" hole section. Two attempts to drill the Asha East well were conducted from 20 August to 4 September 2013 without success. The Asha East well was then suspended and plugged back in order to continue with Amol well. The remaining 12 1/4" and 8 1/2" sections of the Amol well was drilled from 4 to 25 September 2014, then plugged back to kick off the 16/1-20 A T3 Asha East well.

In the Cromer Knoll Group a sandy section with a log response unlike the Åsgard Formation was penetrated from 2427 m to 2753.5 m. Below this section the well penetrated Intra-Draupne Formation sandstone down to the target Hugin Formation sandstones at 2977 m. All sandstones were devoid of any hydrocarbons. Post well depth convers