Wintershall Dea and its partners, Petoro and DNO, have made a gas condensate discovery at the Cuvette prospect in the North Sea, with estimated recoverable volumes of 16-38 million barrels of oil equivalent.

The Cuvette discovery lies just south of the Wintershall Dea operated Vega Central field.

According to Wintershall Dea, the license partners will now evaluate if the gas condensate discovery can be fast tracked into production utilizing existing infrastructure in the Vega / Gjøa area.

“Our strategy is to identify new volumes close to infrastructure that can be quickly developed into new fields. Our goal will now be to establish the commerciality for this new discovery by evaluating development options,” said Roy Davies, Vice President Exploration & Subsurface at Wintershall Dea Norge.

The Cuvette exploration well encountered gas condensate in sandstones of Middle and Upper Jurassic age, with estimated recoverable volumes of 9 – 22 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) in the primary Middle Jurassic target and 7 – 16 mmboe in the shallower Upper Jurassic target.

Wintershall Dea is one of the key operators in this area of the Northern North Sea with the Vega and Nova subsea fields, as well as several operated exploration licenses.

The company is also a major shareholder in the nearby Gjøa platform which is the export hub for the surrounding fields in this area.

“Both Gjøa and Vega are in a mature production phase, meaning there is spare capacity that can be utlilized for developing additional discoveries in the coming years. We will continue to explore for hydrocarbons in the area to use this capacity,” said Ronny Hanssen, Vice President Production & Operations for Wintershall Dea Norge.

Notably, Cuvette is the latest Wintershall Dea operated well to be drilled with the Transocean Norge rig in a period of high activity by the company.

The rig has already drilled development wells in the Maria field in the Norwegian Sea, successfully appraised the Bergknapp and Adriana discoveries and drilled production wells on the Nova field in the North Sea.

During the rest of 2024 and 2025 it is scheduled to complete the Maria Phase 2 wells and in 2026 to commence the drilling of the Dvalin North development wells.