A joint venture led by Austrian operator OMV has made an oil discovery offshore Norway a short distance from the producing Gudrun field.

The wildcat well 15/2-2 S (Eirik) was drilled in a high-pressure, high-temperature reservoir setting about five kilometres west of the Gudrun field in the North Sea, and about 230 kilometres west of Stavanger.

A 500-metre-thick oil column was discovered in the intra-Draupne reservoir formation, comprising multiple thin sandstone layers totalling 23 metres but with poor reservoir properties, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, with oil shows also seen in the Upper Jurassic reservoir.