Norway Oil Body Cuts Barents Sea Oil, Gas Estimate

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate has cut its estimate of recoverable oil and gas resources in the Barents Sea, citing poorer-than-anticipated reservoirs, as well as long distances to markets and high costs.

The recoverable reserves estimate for the northerly sea has been revised down to 910 million cubic meters of oil equivalent, from an earlier estimate of 1.03 billion cubic meters of oil equivalent, the NPD said Tuesday.
“Estimated volumes of oil and gas in the ground have increased somewhat, but the recognition of poorer reservoir properties than expected, distance to the market and the costs associated with development solutions have reduced expectations for the percentage of these resources that can be produced,” the NPD said.

The directorate made the revision in its 2009 resource report, which also said that a goal to increase oil reserves on the Norwegian continental shelf by 800 million cubic meters, or 5 billion barrels, by 2015 “may be difficult to achieve.”

Wall Street Journal (through Google News)