Equinor's latest North Sea drilling campaign finds no fossil fuels

March 24 (UPI) -- Norwegian energy major Equinor had no luck in finding fossil fuels in an unproven area of the North Sea, the government's energy regulator said Friday.

Equinor was drilling a so-called wildcat well, a well drilled into an area not previously known to contain hydrocarbons, near the Visund oil and gas field.

Visund began production in the late 1990s as a largely oil reservoir, though the reserve has been yielding more natural gas this decade.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the nation's energy regulator, said the well results showed "poor to good" quality, but it was determined the well was dry with no commercial reserves.

This was the seventh exploration well drilled in an area opened up to energy companies in 2009. Equinor will now move its drilling facility to a development well at the Vigdis oil field in the North Sea.

For February, the NPD said that both crude oil and natural gas production came in lower than expected. Oil production averaged 1.77 million barrels per day in February, about 2.8% lower than the government's forecast. Gas production averaged 12 billion cubic feet per day, off 1.2% from expectations.

Equinor, however, noted earlier this week that gas production on the Norwegian continental shelf increased by 8% relative to 2021 levels, an increase that came just as the European economy was breaking away from Russian supplies in an effort to rob the Kremlin of the revenue it needs to keep fighting the war in Ukraine.

"The invasion of Ukraine and Russia's weaponization of energy brought further instability to already tight markets, and across the organization we have felt the responsibility that comes with being the single largest supplier of gas to Europe," Anders Opedal, the president and CEO at Equinor, said.