Dana Petroleum discovers new gas field in North Sea

Dana Petroleum, wholly owned by state-run Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC), has discovered a new high-quality gas field in the North Sea, KNOC said on Monday, ahead of commencement of gas production from a block in the sea next year.

A gas reservoir was discovered in the Earn well at the Earn Prospect site in block 42/47 in the southern part of the North Sea at the end of September.

Dana has been conducting exploratory drilling of the offshore blocks at the Earn Prospect site after it secured a license for drilling at an international auction in 2020.

It has a 50% stake in the project with an independent operating right.

The UK oil explorer started full-scale exploratory drilling of the blocks in July and discovered the gas layer in the target reservoir after drilling to a depth of 3,198 meters.

It is now conducting test drilling in the block for the accurate assessment of its gas reserves and to obtain additional data.

The gas field at the Earn Prospect site is 4 kilometers west of the Tolmount Main field, where Dana commenced gas production last year.

The Tolmount Main field was discovered in 2019 with reserves of 24 million barrels based on oil equivalent. It is one of the largest undeveloped gas fields in the southern North Sea.

Dana has also discovered the Tolmount East well with 18 million-barrel reserves of oil equivalent in the Greater Tolmount Area.

It began drilling in the Tolmount East field in 2019, where it is slated to produce gas starting in the first quarter of 2024.

The KNOC acquired Dana in 2011 for $2.9 billion in the first hostile cross-border takeover by a South Korean state-run company.

Apart from the Tolmount gas fields, Dana operates the Triton and Western Isles floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) projects, which helped the UK company ride out liquidity crunches when oil prices plunged.

“Large-scale exploration projects carry high risk, so it’s difficult to push ahead,” said Dana Chief Executive Nam Jaegu.

“But like the Earn project, where we successfully discovered a gas layer, we will continue to push ahead with low-cost, low-risk exploration activities to secure future growth engines.”

Write to Sul-Gi Lee at surugi@hankyung.com
 

Yeonhee Kim edited this article