Faroe Petroleum, an independent oil and gas company, has reported the completion of a successful initial side-track well on the Butch oil discovery, in which it has 15% stake, located in the Norwegian North Sea.
An intital side-track was drilled to appraise for additional volumes of oil surrounding the Butch exploration well after it encountered net oil pay of around 50 metres.
After this was found to be water-bearing, a technical side-track was drilled with the main objective of acquiring pressure data to establish the oil-water contact.
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The technical side-track has been completed successfully and Centrica, which operates the well, has calculated a preliminary resource estimate of 30 - 60m barrels of oil equivalent.
Drilling of a second side-track well is planned to commence in the coming days. The objective of this exploration side-track well is to prove additional oil volumes in the same formation, but in an exploration prospect further south on the salt structure and outside the Butch main discovery.
Chief Executive Graham Stewart said: "We are pleased to be progressing directly to a second side-track well to test an analogous exploration prospect to the Butch discovery, located further south on the salt dome.
"Meanwhile, drilling operations on the T-Rex well continue according to schedule. We look forward to providing further updates on the progress of both the second Butch exploration side-track well and the Norwegian Sea T-Rex well (Faroe 30%) over the coming period, as we prepare to commence our very active 2012 exploration drilling programme."
The share price rose 1.75% to 159.75p by 12:58.
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