The new oil find, called Havis, may hold between 200 million and 300 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe). The new find combined with the previous and nearby discovery, Skrugard, could provide between 400 million and 600 million boe, Statoil said yesterday (9 January).
"This is extremely positive," said John Olaisen, an analyst at the Carnegie investment banking firm in Oslo. "This is an important strategic asset in a new oil region, so this is very good ... One could expect more oil finds in the region after this."
A Shell and ExxonMobil joint venture, Nam, has also announced what it says is the largest on-shore gas field discovery in the Netherlands since 1995, near Ee, in Friesland.
Production at the South Metslawier site, which is estimated to hold 4 billion cubic metres of reserves, is expected to begin in the summer, and last until 2015.
The Norwegian find in the Barents Sea, followed a carve-up of the territory in 2010 between Norway and Russia.
The Arctic region holds 25% of the world’s hydrocarbons, according to the US Geological Survey.
Norway is the world's eighth-largest oil exporter and the second-largest for gas. It has seen declining oil output since 2001, but a string of offshore discoveries have been made over the past year.
Finding oil in the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea had until recently proven to be very difficult.
Over the past 30 years oil companies have drilled 92 exploration wells but only a handful have proven to be hits - Skrugard, Statoil's Snoehvit gas field, Eni's Goliat oilfield and Total's Norvarg discovery.
Statoil now expects to strike more oil in the region around Havis."We believe we now understand (the geology) and have cracked the code in this area," the company’s chief executive Helge Lund said.
"We think we will be able to make additional finds in this licence in the future," he said.
Production at Havis is expected to begin before the end of the decade.
The partners in the latest oil find are Statoil (50%), Italy's Eni (30%) and Norwegian state-owned firm Petoro (20%).
COMMENTS
This is one of those journalist stories which is just too much inspired by smart corporate communication and taken over by too many press outlets (copy/paste) without doing a bit more investigation and without asking the relevant questions.
Calling a 200-300 million new oil find "big" when you know that current global oil use per day is more than 85 million barrels per day seems to me a bit of an over-statement (spin?).
There are other questions to be raised in good coverage of this article too:
- what is the current decline rate of the Norwegian oil and gas production? Will the new finds make up for these declines?
- what will be the REAL economically recoverable size of the "big" promised oil finds? What will be the costs and within what timeframe can the oil be brought to the market?
- as these finds are in the Arctic region, what are the geo-political and environmental challenges?
- is "extreme oil" really the path to a low-carbon economy in the long run?
People are today much more receptive to the potential of natural gas as a climate-friendly and cheap energy source.When all emissions are counted, gas may be as little as 25 percent cleaner than coal, or perhaps even less.Even accounting for the new analysis, natural gas—which also emits less toxic and particulate pollution—offers a significant environmental advantage. But the narrower the margins get, the weaker the political arguments become and the more power utilities flinch at investing billions to switch to a fuel that may someday lose the government's long-term support.Some scientists say the pollution gap between gas and coal could shrink even more. That's in part because the primary pollutant from natural gas, methane, is far more potent than other greenhouse gases, and scientists are still trying to understand its effect on the climate—and because it continues to be difficult to measure exactly how much methane is being emitted.We think that ethane has no effect on climate. Methane absorbs the same photons that are already totally absorbed by water vapor. Therefore, we cannot blame natural gas for any climate effects.
Natural gas escapes naturally everywhere. If we do not use the gas it will escape anyway.
We should monitor oxygen instead of CO2 since oxygen also absorbs infrared photons.In the title of our organization there are words like renewable,sources and energy and we always try to follow and stay at that path. CROATIAN CENTER of RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES (CCRES)
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