Norway's Equinor has discovered oil and gas in the so-called Granat prospect in the North Sea, some 190 kilometres (118.06 miles) northwest of Bergen, the Norwegian offshore directorate said on Monday.
Preliminary estimates indicated a discovery of between 0.2 million and 0.6 million standard cubic metres of recoverable oil equivalent, the directorate said.
It added that the discovery was made via the wildcat well 33/12-N-3 HH in production licence 277, originally awarded in 2002, and that this is the first exploration well in this production licence.
This corresponds to about 1.3-3.8 million barrels of oil equivalent, according to the directorate.
Equinor is the operator and owns 51 per cent of the permit, while Norwegian state-owned oil company Petoro holds 30 per cent and OMV Norge the remaining 19 per cent.
The licensees are considering tying the discovery in the prospect back to existing infrastructure in the nearby Gullfaks area, the directorate said.
(Reporting by Louise Rasmussen, editing by Essi Lehto)
