Equinor (OSL: EQNR), the majority state-owned Norwegian oil and gas group, has found an estimated 19-50 million barrels of oil equivalent at Grimsnes in the North Sea. It announced the discovery this morning, before the London open, with partners Petoro and TotalEnergies.
In a delayed quote at about 10.18am in Oslo, the shares were NOK 431.5, up 1.2% on yesterday’s close of NOK 426.2. They had gained in each of the previous three sessions, so the discovery cannot be shown to be the cause.
The find was made by exploration well 30/8-7 S, drilled by the Deepsea Bergen rig in production licence PL 190, the state permit covering the area. It lies about 15 km south-west of the Oseberg Sør platform and 145 km west of Bergen.
The preliminary estimate is 19-50 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent, or 3-8 million standard cubic metres. Petoro manages the Norwegian state’s direct licence interests; TotalEnergies is the French oil major. Equinor operates the licence, with Petoro holding 40% and TotalEnergies 10%.
The plan is a tie-back, meaning a link from the new find to existing subsea facilities, with output processed through Oseberg Sør. Equinor expects the partners to take an investment decision as early as summer 2027. Frode Skarstein, Equinor’s senior vice president for Exploration and Production West, said:
This confirms that the area around the Oseberg field remains very attractive. We plan to quickly tie the discovery back to existing subsea facilities and produce the volumes through the Oseberg Sør platform. By making use of already paid for infrastructure we achieve good resource utilisation and competitive barrels
Frode Skarstein, Equinor
Set against a market value of roughly NOK 1 trillion, a find of this size is small. The shares have risen about 29% since the 10th of July to yesterday’s close, when they finished at NOK 426.2 from NOK 329.5.
Equinor says Norway supplies 20% of Europe’s oil and 30% of its gas while output from existing fields declines, and it aims to halve both costs and the time from discovery to production. Its third-quarter results are due on the 28th of October.
