BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 30. A new appraisal well at the Afrodite gas discovery near Norway's Kvitebjørn field indicates that recoverable resources could be more than twice as large as previously estimated, Equinor said on October 29.
Afrodite is a High Pressure High Temperature well. In addition, the reservoir is a so-called "tight" reservoir with low permeability. This means that the gas flows slowly through the rock and that it is difficult to extract the volumes.
Owners are Equinor: 60 %, ORLEN Upstream Norway AS: 25 %,
DNO Norway AS: 10 %, Wellesley Petroleum AS: 5 %.
Recoverable gas and condensate volumes are now estimated at between 77 million and 180 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
"The total volumes in the reservoir are about three times as large, but the reservoir properties mean that only parts of the resources can be recovered," the company said.
Discovered in 2008, Afrodite has relatively low permeability, meaning gas flows slowly through the reservoir rock, making the resources challenging to recover.
"The results from the appraisal well will now be analysed further," Equinor said.
"Equinor considers the discovery to be commercially viable and will continue to work on the possibility of a subsea development tied back to the Kvitebjørn platform," the company said.
If developed, the gas could be transported through existing infrastructure to the Kollsnes processing plant in Øygarden and subsequently supplied to the European market.
The appraisal well was drilled by the Deepsea Yantai rig. Wellesley is the operator of the well, while Equinor operates the production licence.
