Oil major ConocoPhillips has announced that it made a ‘significant’ new oil discovery in the Norwegian part of the North Sea.

The oil was discovered in PL-891 on the Slagugle prospect, which is located 14 miles north-northeast of the Heidrun field in the Norwegian Sea.

ConocoPhillips unit ConocoPhillips Skandinavia is the operator of the PL-891 and owns an 80% working interest in it. The remaining 20% is owned by the licence partner Pandion Energy.

The latest discovery is estimated to range between 75 million and 200 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent.

Drilled using the Leiv Eiriksson semi-submersible rig, the 6507/5-10 discovery well was the first exploration well in PL-891, which was awarded in APA 2016.

The rig is now moved to the Bergen shipyard to await for new assignments.

ConocoPhillips executive vice-president and chief operating officer Matt Fox said: “This discovery marks our fourth successful exploration well on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in the last 16 months.

“All four discoveries have been made in well-documented parts of the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea and offer very low cost of supply resource additions that can extend our more than 50-year legacy in Norway.”

ConocoPhillips noted that the discovery well was drilled in 1,165ft of water to a total depth of 7,149ft.

Earlier this month, ConocoPhillips unit ConocoPhillips Skandinavia and its partners in the Tor Unit started production from Tor II field in the Norwegian part of the North Sea.

In October, ConocoPhillips secured consent from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) to start up the Tor II field facilities.