Global energy hunger means boom for Norwegian outpost

“We are opening a new oil province,” said Sverre Kojedal of the state-controlled oil company Statoil, which is developing Norway’s first Barents natural gas field, Snoehvit, which lies about 90 miles off the coast and is expected to come online a year from now.

With the world’s known petroleum resources drying up, the inhospitable waters of the Barents Sea are a new energy frontier. But exploration is controversial, as Norway and Russia weigh the odds of hitting pay dirt against the potential damage to fragile Arctic ecosystems already under assault by global warming.
Houston Chronicle