Oil and gas group Faroe Petroleum (LON:FPM) has reported a new oil discovery in well 8/10-4S on the Butch prospect in the Norwegian North Sea. Faroe holds a 15% stake in the Centrica (LON:CNA) operated licence and the discovery marks the company’s sixth success from eight exploration wells drilled since 2009. The joint venture partners have agreed to immediately press ahead with a down-dip side-track well to appraise for additional volumes of oil further down on the large salt-induced structure and to try to locate the oil water contact in Butch.

The latest well encountered net oil pay of approximately 50 metres in the Upper Jurassic reservoir of the Ula formation. Early results based on extensive coring, wireline logs and pressure data show that the well has encountered a light oil in good quality reservoir sands with a very high net to gross ratio. The entire reservoir section was found to be oil bearing and an oil water contact was not penetrated. Extensive data has been collected, including the coring of the hydrocarbon bearing zone, and a full formation evaluation is underway.

The Butch discovery is situated in 66 metres water depth in the Norwegian North Sea, close to significant existing infrastructure with the giant Ula field approximately seven kilometres to the east, Tambar approximately 10 kilometres to the north east and Gyda approximately 20 kilometres to the north. The equity holders in the licence are Centrica 40%, Suncor Norge AS 30% and Spring Energy Norway AS 15%. Shares in AIM listed Faroe rose by 8.6% to 156.5p during early trading.

Graham Stewart, the chief executive of Faroe, said: “We are very pleased to announce a discovery on the Butch Prospect, which is our second successful exploration well this year, following the announcement of the West of Shetland Fulla discovery in August and our sixth discovery from eight exploration wells since 2009. The Butch discovery is very exciting with further upside potential from the planned side-track well. Alongside our joint venture partners in the licence, Centrica, Suncor and Spring Energy, we very much look forward to the further evaluation of this discovery. As we continue with our significant multi-well drilling programme, we also look forward to our next two exploration wells, both scheduled to be drilled in Norway this year: T-Rex (Faroe…

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