The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate has granted Statoil Petroleum AS a drilling permit for well 34/8-19 S, cf. Section 15 of the Resource Management Regulations.

Well 34/8-19 S will be drilled from the Deepsea Atlantic drilling facility at position 61°26'6.84"N and 2°35'24.37"E after completing the drilling on the Johan Sverdrup field.

The drilling programme for well 34/8-19 S relates to the drilling of a wildcat well in production licence 120. Statoil is the operator with an ownership interest of 53 per cent. The other licensees are Petoro AS (30 per cent), ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS (9 per cent) and Repsol Norge AS (8 per cent). The area in this licence consists of a part of block 34/8. The well will be drilled about ten kilometres northeast of the Visund field.

Production licence 120 was awarded on 23 August 1985 in licensing round 10 A on the Norwegian shelf. This is the nineteenth exploration well to be drilled in the licence.

The permit is contingent on the operator securing all other permits and consents required by other authorities prior to commencing the drilling activity.