• Successful drilling and testing of the Wisting Central II appraisal well
  • Wisting area potential is reconfirmed at 200-500 mn boe

OMV has successfully completed drilling and testing of the Wisting Central II appraisal well. The horizontal well was drilled in the Wisting field in the Barents Sea, about 310 km north of Hammerfest. The Wisting field is the northernmost oil discovery in Norway. Wisting Central II is the fifth well in the production license PL537, which was awarded in the 20th licensing round in 2009.

The well objectives were to confirm the potential of the discovery by proving the presence of hydrocarbons in the undrilled Wisting Central South and Central West segments, and to prove the technical concept of long-reach horizontal wells in a shallow reservoir, about 250 meters below seabed. The possibility to drill such wells is needed to establish the basis for a viable development of the Wisting discovery. A well test was performed and flow rates reached just above 5,000 boe/d.

The well results are expected to provide an increase of in-place volumes in the Central South and Central West segments, and further reduce the overall uncertainty of contingent resources in PL537.

The Wisting Central II well is the first horizontal appraisal well in the Barents Sea and sets a new drilling record; it is the shallowest horizontal offshore well drilled from a floating drilling facility. Water depth at Wisting is 402 meters. The well started vertically and was successfully steered into a horizontal orientation within a 250 meters depth interval. The total well length is 2,354 meters and the horizontal section measures 1,402 meters. Advanced data collection and geo-steering was conducted through the entire horizontal phase.

The well was spudded on January 15, 2016, by the semisubmersible rig Transocean Spitsbergen. The well test was finalized end of March and the well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.

'OMV is very satisfied with the well test results, which are promising. This well is an important milestone towards a future field development on Wisting' said Johann Pleininger, OMV Executive Board member responsible for Upstream.

OMV (Norge) AS as operator has 25% share in the PL537 license. Joint venture partners are Petoro (20%), Idemitsu (20%), Tullow (20%) and Statoil (15%).

Background information:

OMV in Norway
 OMV (Norge) AS is a wholly owned subsidiary of OMV Exploration & Production GmbH, established in 2006 and headquartered in Stavanger. OMV holds production shares in Gullfaks and Gudrun, both fields are operated by Statoil. OMV Norge is partner in the ongoing field development projects Aasta Hansteen, Zidane, Edvard Grieg and in the Polarled infrastructure project and focuses its exploration activities in the more frontier areas of the Northern Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. OMV (Norge) AS currently has interests in 36 licenses; nine licenses are operated by OMV.

OMV Aktiengesellschaft
 With Group sales of EUR 23 bn and a workforce of around 24,100 employees in 2015, OMV Aktiengesellschaft is one of Austria's largest listed industrial companies. In Upstream, OMV focuses on three core regions - CEE (Romania, Austria), North Sea as well as Middle East and Africa - and selected development areas. 2015 daily production stood at approximately 303kboe/d. In Downstream, OMV has an annual refining capacity of 17.8 mn tonnes and approximately 3,800 filling stations in 11 countries as of end of 2015. OMV operates a gas pipeline network in Austria and gas storage facilities in Austria and Germany. In 2015, gas sales volumes amounted to 110 TWh.

For further information, please contact:

OMV Media Relations:
Robert Lechner, Tel.: +43 1 40440 21472, e-mail: robert.lechner@omv.com

OMV Investor Relations:
Felix Rüsch, Tel.: +43 1 40440 21600, e-mail: investor.relations@omv.com
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OMV AG issued this content on 06 April 2016 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 06 April 2016 10:49:15 UTC

Original Document: http://www.omv.com/generic-list/display/en/125577007703021