Dana Petroleum (LSE: DNX) announced it has made an Oil & Gas discovery at the Tornado prospect, offshore West of Shetland, UK. The thickness and quality of the reservoir is in line with pre-drill prognosis.
The well discovered gas and oil in Tertiary reservoir sandstones and extensive data collection is currently underway. A sidetrack is being planned to delineate the discovery and determine hydrocarbon fluid types and overall size of this new field.
Austrian oil & gas company, OMV is operator for the licence. It completed the drilling of the Tornado exploration well to a true vertical depth of 2,743m in the Lamba Formation. The participants in the Tornado well are OMV - operator 35%, Dana Petroleum 30%, Dong Energy 20%, Faroe Petroleum 7.5%, and Idemitsu E&P 7.5%.
Dana’s other exploration projects have also been progressing, Dana spudded the Jetta well in the Jotun oil area of the Norwegian North Sea on 11 October 2009. Results are expected from this well in November. Meanwhile operations have been completed on the September exploration prospect in the Gulf of Suez Egypt, however these were not hydrocarbon bearing at this location.
Dana's Chief Executive, Tom Cross commented on this latest discovery off Scotland’s Shetland Islands;
"The discovery of hydrocarbons at Tornado is an important result as it lies in an area of the UK Continental Shelf where Dana and Faroe Petroleum have very strong positions as the key independents. We look forward to the sidetrack well to determine the ultimate size of this new field."