Statoil Will Not Drill In Arctic Sea This Year

Norwegian energy firm Statoil will not drill exploration wells in the Arctic Barents Sea this year after a failed campaign in 2014, exploration chief Tim Dodson told Offshore.no.

Statoil’s Norwegian exploration will concentrate on the mature North Sea and areas near its Asta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea, with a focus on resources that can be tied into existing platforms, Dodson said.

“We are going to drill in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea,” Dodson said in a video interview. “We have no plans, after the big exploration campaign, to drill in the Barents Sea.”

Dodson said Statoil would still drill a “relatively large number” of exploration wells in Norway this year and it would reveal the exact number at its strategy update on Feb 6, Dodson said.

Statoil spent in the range of $3.5 billion last year to drill around 50 exploration wells but its campaigns in the Arctic and Angola failed, and it has released several rigs as a result.

RIGZONE

7 Comments on "Statoil Will Not Drill In Arctic Sea This Year"

JuanP on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 10:32 am 



This was to be expected. There shouldn’t be much new investment in Arctic oil exploration until prices come back up, and even then Arctic oil remains a maybe, it is so expensive. I wonder how the Brazilian pre salt oil and Petrobras are doing with oil at this prices.

Bob Owens on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 10:44 am 



And so the big oil wind-down begins. Will it be enough and in time to save the planet? Time will tell.

Dave on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 11:12 am 



Peak oil due to the low hanging fruit being largely picked and getting more so all the time. With the oil market it will never be about exhausting the resource (although will significantly reduce it), it will be about economics. Too much off the world simply cannot endure the price of either rising or even flat production. We do indeed live in very interesting times.

Perk Earl on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 11:45 am 



“Statoil Will Not Drill In Arctic Sea This Year”

That’s music to my ears, especially now they’ve found millions of gallons of oil at the bottom of the gulf from BP’s Macondo blowout.

Is it possible that capex required for Arctic exploration will now always exceed the consumer affordability price? It would be great timing if that is the case.

rockman on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 2:41 pm 



Bob – “And so the big oil wind-down begins. Will it be enough and in time to save the planet? Time will tell”.

Huh? So you think the price of motor fuels going down as well coal becoming a bit cheaper the world will suddenly decrease GHG production? China was adding 30 million vehicles to the nations rolling fleet. And bow with fuel becoming more affordable we should expect fewer cars hitting the road in coming years?

Remember that developing fossil fuels reserves produces very little GHG. It’s the consumption of fossil fuels that creates the vast majority of GHG. I can’t imagine any turn of events that would worsen global warming then lower cost fossil fuels. Lower cost fossil fuels that would also lessen the financial motive to develop alternative energy. And then down the road the second shoe drops: lower ff costs increase economic activity which increases ff demand. And that eventually leads to higher prices which, once again, incentivizes developing new ff resources.

Buddy, you and I have very different views on how the world works.

GregT on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 3:42 pm 



The time to develop alternate energy infrastructure is rapidly running out. Lower FF prices would make these developments cheaper to implement. I think that it is safe to say by now, that transitional energy sources will not be explored in any numbers meaningful enough to cushion the blow of the end of the oil age. We are simply too addicted to BAU, and the easy lives that fossil fuels have provided for us.

There will be no transition, only collapse.

Davy on Sun, 1st Feb 2015 6:55 pm 



I agree Greg AltE as an effective tool of transition away from FF came and went 20 years ago. Instead we built out more of the same dead end BAU of all shapes and sizes from aircraft carriers to strip malls. You name it the majority of what was built out was exactly the wrong things for what is needed for survival in the coming descent. I doubt if we even would have fully devoted to AltE as a transition tool 20 years ago if that would have worked. This would have required huge lifestyles and attitude changes to begin with. The reality of the situation is with population so large and attitudes and lifestyles unchanged we have little chance of a transition currently. This does not mean we should do all we can with AltE of all kinds. Anything will help and any AltE is better than a new football stadium.