Longboat confirms start of drilling in Norwegian North Sea

North Sea-focussed exploration and production company Longboat Energy announced the start of drilling operations on the Ginny and Hermine exploration well in the Norwegian Sea on Tuesday, where it has a 9% holding.

The AIM-traded firm said the well spud on 31 December, adding that the wells were the first in a high impact, four-well 2022 drilling programme targeting 75 million barrels of oil equivalent net to Longboat.

It said the Ginny and Hermine prospects were estimated to contain gross mean prospective resources of 41 million barrels of oil equivalent for Ginny and 27 million barrels for Hermine, with further potential upside to bring the total to 84 million barrels and 45 million barrels, respectively.

The geological chance of success associated with the Ginny prospect was 27%, and for Hermine was 22%, with the key risks being related to fault seal and fluid phase.

Longboat said the drilling of the Ginny and Hermine prospects was being undertaken by the West Hercules drilling rig operated by Equinor.

Well 6407/9-13, in production licence PL1060, was targeting both the Upper Jurassic Ginny and the Middle Jurassic Hermine prospects.

The stacked reservoirs opportunity was located between the Galtvort discovery and Hasselmus field development.

It said the well was expected to take up to five weeks to drill, with an estimated pre-carry net cost to Longboat of $2m, or $0.45m after tax.

Equinor Energy is the operator with a 31% working interest, with the other licensees being OKEA at 40% and Chrysaor Norge at 20%.

Longboar said an announcement would be made if and when hydrocarbons were encountered, or on completion of drilling operations.

“I am pleased that we have commenced drilling operations on the fourth exploration well in our seven well programme,” said chief executive officer Helge Hammer.

“We are in an active period of drilling with each well having the potential to create very significant shareholder value.”

Hammer said a discovery in the Ginny and Hermine prospects could be developed rapidly through the use of existing infrastructure, notably through the OKEA-operated Draugen platform or the Equinor-operated Njord infrastructure.

"With evaluation underway to quantify the upside resource potential at the material Egyptian Vulture discovery, Longboat is now looking forward to drilling Ginny and Hermine as we continue our fully-funded programme with the Kveikje and Cambozola wells spudding in the spring.”

At 1449 GMT, shares in Longboat Energy were up 2.06% at 64.3p.