Norway has awarded four exploration licenses to seven oil companies, including three for the Arctic Barents Sea, but fewer oil companies applied for the permits than in previous licensing rounds.
The awards were part of Norway’s so-called numbered licensing rounds that cover previously unexplored frontier areas of the country’s continental shelf, expanding the geographical reach of its oil and gas industry.
“This is important for employment and value creation in the Norwegian oil and gas industry,” Minister of Petroleum and Energy Tina Bru said in a statement.
The fourth new exploration permit in the 25th licensing round is located further south, in the Norwegian Sea.
The latest round attracted interest from seven companies, fewer than in the previous two rounds, with 11 companies seeking acreage in the 24th round in 2018 and 26 companies in the 23rd round in 2016.
Norway offered nine areas for drilling in the 25th round, of which five went uncollected, all of them in the Barents Sea, where oil firms have drilled many dry wells in the past few years and where only a few fields have so far been developed.
Source: Reuters
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