f Proven hydrocarbon plays of the Northern North Sea - The role of subtle traps

The northern North Sea petroleum province stretches from the East Shetland platform to the Oygarden Fault, an area of 40000km² and includes five regions: the East Shetland Basin and Tampen Spur, the Viking and Sogn Grabens and the Horda Platform. Since the first wells in 1971 (UK) and 1973 (Norway), 350 and 215 exploration/appraisal wells have been drilled, respectively, resulting in 17 fields and 37 discoveries in the UK and 9 fields and 40 discoveries in Norway. Two thirds of the UK finds were made in the first seven years of drilling. The Norwegian discoveries have been more evenly distributed in time, with several recent succeses. Production in 1991 in the province was about 2.2million bopd and ,8 million Scm³/d sales gas, oil coming 60% from Norway and gas 60% from the UK.