Exploration drilling yields promising Barents Sea oil, natural gas finds

An exploration well drilled off Norway’s northern tip has hit promising oil and natural gas reserves in the Barents Sea, a project partner announced Dec. 21.

The small Norwegian oil company DNO did not estimate the size of the far north find.

“It’s a little too early to say,” DNO managing director Helge Eide told the Associated Press. “But it is positive.”

The state radio network NRK said there is enough oil to make development possible, which it said could make the field, called Goliat, the first oil field developed in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea.

NRK reported preliminary estimates of 100 million barrels of oil, which it said was not a huge find but was enough to be commercially exploited.

Goliat is about 85 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Norway’s northernmost town, Hammerfest, and is in an area environmentalists say is too ecologically sensitive to withstand oil production.

“The Goliat field is in one of the Barents Sea’s most vulnerable and valuable nature areas,” said the conservation group WWF in a statement. “WWF demands that the government reject any application to develop the field.”

Norway has been encouraging exploration

DNO broke Norwegian tradition by announcing the find before the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate was informed and make the news public.

Project operator ENI Norge AS, the Norwegian subsidiary of Italian oil company Eni, declined comment until it had formally notified the government directorate.

Eide said DNO felt bound to release the information immediately under Norwegian stock market laws requiring full disclosure.

Eni, with a 65 percent stake, operates the field on behalf of its partners, state-controlled Norwegian oil company Statoil ASA, with 20 percent, and DNO, with 15 percent.

—The Associated Press