Aker BP, Equinor, and DNO have lifted the recoverable resource estimate for the Verdandi and Lillefix discoveries in the Norwegian North Sea to between 8 and 15 million barrels of oil equivalent, from a pre-drill range of 4–12 mbbl.

The revision follows the appraisal well 16/1-EA-4 H, drilled horizontally from the Symra field's subsea template roughly 200 km west of Stavanger. Odfjell Drilling's Deepsea Nordkapp rig completed the well, the 11th exploration borehole in production licence 167, awarded in the 13th licensing round.

What did the well encounter?

Drilling targeted Palaeocene reservoir rocks in the Heimdal Formation and sought to confirm the reservoir extent and the presumed oil-water contact. The well intersected a 14 m gas column above a 44 m oil column in Heimdal sandstones, with the gas-oil contact logged at 1,776 m below sea level.

The horizontal section reached 1,515 m through the oil zone, where reservoir quality was described as moderate. Data acquisition covered fluid samples and pressure points. The well terminated in the Heimdal Formation at a vertical depth of 1,864 m below sea level in 116 m of water, and has since been permanently plugged and abandoned.

How does the revised volume range compare with the pre-drill case?

Before drilling, the three licensees had booked between 600,000 and 1.9 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalent, equal to 4–12 mbbl. Post-drill preliminary calculations widened the range to 1.3–2.4 mscm o.e., or 8–15 mbbl.

Aker BP, operator of the licence, along with Equinor and DNO, are now screening whether the discovery can be tied back economically to the Symra field.

What is the Symra host facility?

Symra sits in the central North Sea, 5 km north-east of the Ivar Aasen field in 110 m of water. The field was discovered in 2018, and Norwegian authorities approved the plan for development and operation in 2023. The selected development concept centres on a subsea template with four wells tied back to the Ivar Aasen platform.

A Verdandi-Lillefix tie-back would extend that template-based infrastructure, leveraging the existing Ivar Aasen host rather than sanctioning a standalone development.

What is the watch item?

The commercial screening work is the immediate next step. A tie-back decision hinges on recoverable volumes large enough to cover subsea tie-back costs, plus spare processing capacity at Ivar Aasen for additional fluids. No sanction timeline has been disclosed.

The result also adds optionality around further drilling in licence 167, where Aker BP has been the most active explorer in the area. The next watch items: a tie-back screening outcome from Aker BP and any follow-up exploration programme inside the licence.