The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Wintershall Norge a drilling permit for a wildcat well located offshore Norway.

The NPD said on Tuesday that the drilling program was for a wildcat well, labeled 6706/6-2 S, located in the Norwegian Sea in production license 847.

Wintershall Norge is the operator of the license with an ownership interest of 40 percent. The other licensees are Repsol Norge, OMV Norge, and Equinor with 20 percent each.

The area in this license consists of a part of block 6706/5 and a part of block 6706/6. The well will be drilled about seven kilometers west of the 6706/6-1 discovery named Hvitveis.

Production license 847 was awarded on February 5, 2016, in APA 2015. This is the first well to be drilled in the license.

The NPD added that the well would be drilled by the Transocean Spitsbergen harsh environment semi-submersible drilling rig. The rig is of the Aker H-6e type, owned and operated by Transocean. It was built at the Aker Stord yard in 2009, registered in the Marshall Islands and classified by DNV GL.

This latest drilling permit follows a presentation by Mario Mehren, Wintershall's CEO, at the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin on Tuesday where he stated that Norway was an important part of the company's future production goals. The presentation was held during a visit by Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg.