Statoil
ASA (STL) found
natural gas off the shore of Norway with Russia’s OAO
Rosneft (ROSN), the state-controlled oil company targeted by international sanctions.
“The well has proved gas in a
sandstone reservoir,” North
Energy ASA (NORTH), a partner in the Pingvin prospect, said
in a statement today. The company provided no resource estimates, saying more
information would be given as soon as results are analyzed.
The Pingvin well follows
disappointing exploration results for Statoil in the Barents Sea over the last
1 1/2 years as it struggles to match the success of the Skrugard and Havis oil
finds in 2011 and 2012. The Stavanger-based company failed to make a commercial
discovery in its northernmost campaign offshore Norway in the Hoop area this year.
A one-year, $3 billion
exploration campaign through May also failed to find sufficient quantities of
oil to avoid a new delay of the Johan Castberg development, which consists of
Skrugard and Havis. While the two discoveries, which may hold as much as 600
million barrels of oil between them revived interest in the Barents Sea, a
concept choice has been deferred to next year as Statoil seeks to make the
project more profitable amid higher costs and taxes.
The Pingvin well is the first
where Rosneft has participated on the Norwegian shelf after it got a stake in
the 713 license last year. The company, which has been targeted by U.S. and
European Union sanctions over Russia’s
involvement in the Ukraine conflict, signed a cooperation deal with Statoil in
2012 that also involves projects in Russia.
The
Pingvin well was held up for a few days earlier this month as environmental
group Greenpeace filed a complaint arguing that the operations were too close
to the Bear Island nature reserve and the polar ice cap.
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