Norway's Equinor and partners Petoro and TotalEnergies have made an oil and gas discovery near the Oseberg field in the North Sea and plan a fast-track development using existing infrastructure, they said on Wednesday.
Preliminary estimates put the size of the "Grimsnes" discovery at between 19 million and 50 million barrels of oil equivalent, operator Equinor said.
The discovery was made in the Oseberg area, about 145 kilometres (90 miles) west of Bergen, near Equinor-operated fields Oseberg South and Tune.
Companies in Norway are seeking to extend the life of ageing oil and gas fields by exploring for nearby reserves that can be linked to existing platforms.
"We plan to quickly tie the discovery back to existing subsea facilities and produce the volumes through the Oseberg South platform," Senior Vice President Frode Skarstein said in a statement.
Together with its partners, Equinor aims to make an investment decision as early as next summer and start production within three years.
(Reporting by Essi Lehto, editing by Terje Solsvik)
