Our Arctic Neighbors: StatoilHydro allowed to drill near coast

StatoilHydro has received approval from Norway’s Pollution Control Authority to drill an appraisal well at the Nucula oil and gas discovery in the Barents Sea. Environmental groups have asked the country’s environment minister, Erik Solheim, to block the drilling because the license lies just 46 kilometers (28 miles) from the coast.

In 2006 Norway banned any new Barents Sea oil activity closer than 50 kilometers to land, but decided to allow exploration in licenses already awarded, such as the one containing Nucula. The Nucula field was discovered in 2007 and is currently estimated to hold 69 million barrels of oil and 5.9 billion cubic meters of gas (208.3 billion cubic feet). It will be drilled with Transocean’s semi-submersible rig Polar Pioneer, which has drilled all the Norwegian Barents Sea exploration wells this year, and has been modified to satisfy Norwegian criteria for zero-discharge operations.

—Sarah Hurst