Norway's Equinor makes gas discovery near Irpa field in Norwegian Sea

Norway's state-controlled Equinor has made a commercial gas discovery in the Norwegian Sea close to the Irpa field, it said Jan. 18, the first find on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in 2023.

Recoverable gas reserves at the Obelix Upflank find in license area 1128 are estimated at 2-11 Bcm of gas, Equinor said in a statement.

Equinor -- together with partners Wintershall Dea and Petoro -- drilled exploration wells 6605/1-2 S&A in the Norwegian Sea that led to the discovery.

They were the first and second wells in the Equinor-operated production license that was awarded in the mature area licensing round in 2020.

The Obelix Upflank discovery was made some 23 km south of the Irpa gas field, which is currently under development.

"We need to find more gas on the NCS," Grete Haaland, Equinor's senior vice president for exploration and production north, said.

"Discoveries near existing infrastructure require less volume in order to be commercially developed and can be quickly put on stream," Haaland said.

"We will together with our partners consider tie-back of this discovery to Irpa, for which we recently submitted a plan for development and operation."

Irpa is a subsea development that will be tied back to the major Aasta Hansteen platform and is expected to come online in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Irpa is designed to extend the life of Aasta Hansteen by seven years from 2032 to 2039.

Irpa, formerly known as Asterix, holds an estimated 19.3 Bcm of gas and is to be developed through three wells and an 80-km pipeline to Aasta Hansteen.

Biggest supplier

Norway is now the biggest single supplier of gas to Europe after Russian flows were sharply curtailed through 2022, with Norwegian deliveries meeting around a quarter of European demand.

Continued investment in new projects will enable Norway to maintain its export levels in the longer term, while Oslo has also pledged to do as much as it can to boost gas deliveries to Europe in the near term.

Producers were also driven to maximize exports by high European gas prices through 2022, though prices have weakened in recent months due to mild weather, healthy storage stocks, and demand reductions.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed the Dutch TTF month-ahead price at Eur58.98/MWh on Jan. 17, well down from the all-time high of Eur319.98/MWh reached on Aug. 26.

Norwegian gas production totaled 122 Bcm in 2022 and is expected to remain flat in 2023 before reaching a new peak of 122.5 Bcm in 2025.

Gas output in 2022 -- which was 9 Bcm higher year on year -- was boosted by a number of factors, including the approval of permits to increase gas output at a number of fields as well as a "high degree" of operational stability, the NPD said earlier this month.

The Equinor-operated Snohvit gas field -- which feeds the Hammerfest LNG plant -- also came back on stream in June after having been shut in after a fire at the plant in September 2020.