Statoil ASA (STL) and Eni SpA (ENI) are among companies with plans to drill a record number of wells in Norway’s far north this year to help the world’s second-largest gas exporter to sustain output. So far, they’ve struck out.
All four wells drilled in the Barents and Norwegian seas this year have failed to find oil or gas, adding to two dry wells in the North Sea, the biggest number of failures to start the year since the country’s oil era began in 1966, according to government data. Oil companies plan as many as 22 wells in Norway’s Arctic this year, up from 12 last year.
Helge Lund, chief executive officer at state-controlled oil company Statoil, says the industry has been unable to “crack the code” of the Barents Sea, off Scandinavia’s northern tip. Norway, where energy production makes up about 25 percent of the economy, is pushing into the Arctic and relying more on gas because oil output has slumped 50 percent since peaking in 2000.
The Barents Sea “is extremely important for Norwegian oil production given that the mature areas are in extreme decline,” said Torbjoern Kjus, an analyst at DnB NOR ASA in Oslo. “Every dry well is a setback, but we have to keep trying where there might be resources left if we’re going to maintain Norwegian production going for as long as possible.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-03/norway-drillers-hit-worst-dry-spell-in-decades-as-reserves-wane.html
New Norway oil minister more open to Arctic scheme
OSLO, March 4 (Reuters) - Norway replaced its oil and energy minister on Friday, appointing a rising politician who is more open than his predecessor to the prospect of drilling in a pristine Arctic archipelago.
Terje Riis-Johansen, who personally opposed drilling in the Lofoten region, resigned after months of criticism of his handling of a costly and delayed carbon capture facility and a plan to build power cable across a scenic fjord.
He was replaced by fellow Centre Party politician Ola Borten Moe, a 34-year-old farmer who is the grandson of former Prime Minister Per Borten and a rising star in Norwegian politics.
The oil industry has said that only by allowing drilling off the Lofoten Islands, a region rich in fish and unique cold-water reefs, can Norway prolong its oil boom as output from North Sea oilfields dwindles.
"Under certain circumstances I would not exclude the opportunity (of drilling in Lofoten)," Moe told Reuters after being presented to the King as the new oil minister.
Norway is the world's No. 5 oil exporter and No. 2 gas exporter, although its oil output, now about 2 million barrels per day, has dropped by a third since peaking in 2001.
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE7230YT20110304?sp=true
