The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Equinor a drilling permit for a wildcat well located in the Barents Sea offshore Norway.

The well 7219/9-3 will be drilled from the Transocean Enabler drilling rig, for which Equinor gained a safety consent in September 2019. The well has been given the prospect name Mist.

The drilling program for well 7219/9-3 relates to the drilling of a wildcat well in production license 532 where Equinor is the operator with an ownership interest of 50 percent. Other licensees are Vår Energi with 30 percent and Petoro with 20 percent.

The area in this license consists of parts of blocks 7219/9, 7220/4, 7220/5, 7220/7 and 7220/8. The well will be drilled about 25 kilometers southwest of Johan Castberg FPSO.

Production license 532 was awarded on May 15, 2009 in the 20th licensing round on the Norwegian shelf. This is the 10th well to be drilled in the license.

The Transocean Enabler, formerly named Songa Enabler, is a semi-submersible drilling rig of the CAT D type. It was delivered by the Daewoo yard in South Korea in 2016, registered in Norway, and classified by DNV-GL.