Norway Awards 65 Licences in Mature Areas to 48 Companies

Norway registered a record number of companies applying for available acreage in mature fields, despite the recent oil tax hike and increase industry costs.

“It is clear that the oil companies still consider it interesting to explore for oil and gas in mature areas,” Sissel Eriksen, exploration director in the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, said in a note released on Tuesday.

Out of the 50 companies that applied, 48 will receive ownership interests in at least one of the 65 new production licences on the Norwegian continental shelf. Only RWE Dea and Iceland's Eykon Energy were left empty-handed.

Statoil was the company reporting the highest number of licences. The Oslo-based major was awarded interests in 10 production licences. It will be the operator in 7 licences.

"The mature areas of the NCS are very attractive. Familiar geology contributes to high discovery rates, while well-developed infrastructure yields high-value barrels," Irene Rummelhoff, newly appointed senior vice president for NCS exploration in Statoil, commented in a note released on Tuesday. 

The majority of the licences will be subject to “drill or drop” conditions, which imply that the licensees have between one and three years to decide whether they want to drill an exploration well. 

The Awards in Pre-defined Areas (APA) 2013 was announced in February 2013. The deadline for the applications was in September. 

Of the 65 production licences, 38 are located in the North Sea, 19 in the Norwegian Sea and 8 in the Barents Sea. Seventeen are additional acreage to existing production licences.

Unexplored areas will be offered later this year. The biggest one will be in the Barents Sea.