Petroleum geoscience in Norden - Exploration, production and organization

Abstract

Offshore exploration in Norway and Denmark - in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea - has involved drilling about 850 wildcat wells, resulting in about 300 oil and gas finds, of which 84 are fields with production. The recoverable resources of all these finds total about 65 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Almost all these hydrocarbons come from a Jurassic source and the main reservoirs and traps are Jurassic sandstones in fault blocks and Paleocene sandstones or Cretaceous chalks in gentle domes. The article describes four major fields - Ekofisk, Gullfaks, Ormen Lange and Snøhvit - to illustrate some of the many challenges in developing and producing the hydrocarbons. Elsewhere in Norden, there has been much less exploration. Drilling results have mostly been negative in mainland Sweden, onshore Denmark, onshore Svalbard and on- and offshore West Greenland. Minor oil finds have been made in Palaeozoic rocks in the Baltic Sea. The first wells have recently been drilled off the Faroe Islands, resulting in one discovery. No drilling has taken place on- or offshore East Greenland. As a result of the hydrocarbon activities in Norway and Denmark, petroleum geoscience there has flourished, with 2000 geoscientists currently employed in the industry, many technical innovations made, a wealth of publically available information and a great increase in the understanding of the geology.