Leszek Szymański/PAP

Poland’s leading oil and gas company, PKN Orlen has said the Ost Frigg field in Norway, which it has shares in, may contain twice as much crude oil as previously assumed.

Last year, PKN Orlen took over Poland’s natural gas giant PGNiG. The production of gas and crude oil from the Norwegian shelf is conducted by PKN Orlen’s subsidiary PGNiG Upstream Norway (PUN).

The Ost Frigg is one of eight fields in the Yggdrasil (formerly Noaka) area, where one of the largest investment project on the Norwegian Continental Shelf is being carried out, with a value of around NOK 115 billion (EUR 9.7 billion).

PUN has a 12.3-percent stake in the field which oil resources were originally estimated at 18 million-45 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), PKN Orlen said in a statement on Friday.

“The results obtained during the exploration drilling well indicate that the actual recoverable resources may be at least twice as large and amount to 40 million-90 million boe. This would mean that the crude oil resources in the Ost Frigg field attributable to the Orlen Group amount to 5 million-11 million boe,” the company added.

Accurate estimation of the deposit’s recoverable volume will require further analyses and the results must be confirmed by the Norwegian Oil Directorate.