OMV Assesses Ice Risk For Arctic’s Wisting Development

HOUSTON—Austria-based OMV has already discovered more than an estimated 1 billion barrels of oil in place with up to about 500 million barrels of recoverable reserves at the Wisting Field, which lies far north in the Arctic’s Barents Sea.

The operator, working with Schlumberger, has also proven that it can drill a shallow horizontal offshore well from a floating drilling facility, having landed out horizontally about 250 m beneath the seabed and extended about 1,400 m.

But the biggest challenge for the development may still lie ahead for OMV and its partners: planning for and coping with sea ice and the unknown obstacles it could pose.