Page 7 - EurOil Week 47

EurOil COMMENTARY EurOil

Blocks on offer in the
Barents Sea. Source
NPD.

Blocks on offer in the
Norwegian Sea. Source:
NPD.

failures over the past year. The UK’s Spirit Energy mainly owing to Oslo’s fiscal regime that allows
reported a dry well in the Barents Sea in July. It companies to reduce exploration costs from
was followed by Equinor, which announced their tax base. Even so, oil firms are anticipated
a similar result the next month. Most recently, to drill only 30 exploration wells off Norway in
Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum drilled a duster this 2020, the NPD estimated in October, marking
month 30 km east of Equinor’s Johan Castberg a 14-year low and comparing with 57 wells in
oilfield, expected to become the next Barents Sea 2019.
project to come online. In more optimistic news, companies have
Castberg has also suffered development set- boosted 2021 investment plans in recent months,
backs, with Equinor reporting in October that however. The investment forecast for next
its floating production storage and offload- year has been raised by 12% to NOK166.3bn
ing (FPSO) unit would arrive a year late in the ($18.4bn), Norway’s statistics office reported
fourth quarter of 2023. This delay comes after last week, compared with the previous guidance
the company found issues with the welds of the in August.
vessel, which is under construction in a yard in Part of this is due to increased costs, owing to
Singapore. devaluation of the Norwegian krone and other
factors. But a number of companies have also
Outlook revived exploration and production plans, fol-
Norwegian operators have maintained drilling lowing a tax relief package approved by Parlia-
rates better than their counterparts in the UK, ment in June. ™

Week 47 26•November•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P7