Norway Govt Aims to Add 5B Bbl More Oil Reserves by 2015

The Norwegian government hopes to add an additional 5 billion barrels of oil to its reserves by 2015, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said Monday.

The NPD, an administrative arm of the Oil and Energy Ministry, said in its annual Resource Report it estimated remaining oil reserves on the Norwegian Continental Shelf at around 7.75 billion bbl. It counts as reserves those resources it believes possible to extract.

To reach this target, the NPD called on companies to increase their recovery rates – or the total amount of oil pumped compared with the total amount in the reservoir – to 55% from the current average of around 46%. The NPD last year only aimed for a 50% recovery factor.

Schlumberger