TotalEnergies has begun drilling a well in the Harald East area near the Norwegian border in the North Sea with a Shelf Drilling rig. The goal is to find more natural gas that can be exported through Tyra’s facilities in the Danish sector.
Shelf Drilling for gas reserves
The start of drilling activities comes months after the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC) partners, including TotalEnergies (operator, 43.2%), BlueNord (36.8%) and Nordsøfonden (20%), made the final investment decision (FID) in January 2024 to drill the Harald East Middle Jurassic (HEMJ) well during the summer.
[post_relacionado]Miriam Lykke, BlueNord’s chief operating officer, commented: “We will drill through the chalk deposit and then into the Jurassic deposit, which has very promising qualities. If successful, HEMJ’s expected earnings could be significant for BlueNord and we expect to see results later this year.“.
The well is being drilled by the self-elevating rig Shelf Drilling Winner in the Harald East area near the Norwegian border. If these exploration operations prove successful, gas will be exported through the Tyra East facility and the well could be put on production by the end of 2024, with an estimated expected payout of up to 8 mmboe net to BlueNord, of which approximately 80% is expected to be gas.
Tyra’s facilities
With a maximum drilling depth of 35,000 ft and a water depth of 400 ft, the Shelf Drilling Winner rig, built in 2014, is a Friede & Goldman JU-3000N design and accommodates 150 personnel. The elevator has been working for TotalEnergies in Denmark since October 2022 and is scheduled to complete this task in March 2025.
Following the restart of gas production from Tyra II, which is said to be Denmark’s largest natural gas field, export of gas from the Tyra facility to Denmark was ongoing during the ramp-up period. However, an operational incident temporarily affected the commissioning of the facilities during the start-up and testing period.
According to TotalEnergies’ update, commissioning and ramp-up of export and production from the new Tyra II facility will likely continue through the fourth quarter of 2024. The operator intends to partially resume production of Tyra II during the summer of 2024. The remodeled Tyra facility, which extends the life of the Danish field by 25 years, is expected to produce 5.7 million cubic meters of gas and 22,000 barrels of condensate per day on a plateau.
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Source: Offshore Energy
Photo: Shelf Drilling