Page 14 - EurOil Week 02 2023

EurOil POLICY EurOil

Norway offers up licences

in latest APA round

NORWAY NORWEGIAN authorities have offered up some Kalmar Ildstad, said in a statement. “A key fac-
47 production licences to 25 companies in the tor for further value creation on the shelf will be
It is less offers than in country’s latest awards in predefined areas (APA) utilising available capacity in existing oil and gas
previous years. bidding round, representing a relatively low level infrastructure. That’s why it’s important that the
of offers compared with previous years. companies continue active exploration to find
Applications were received from 26 com- resources that are close to this infrastructure.”
panies in total during the autumn of last year, APA rounds offer up acreage in relatively
the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) well-exploration areas with existing infrastruc-
reported on January 10. Of the offered licences, ture. Norway also holds frontier rounds on a less
29 are located in the North Sea, 16 in the Norwe- regular basis, which give operators the chance to
gian Sea and two in the Barents Sea. 20 of them explore in more undeveloped areas, where risks
are for extra acreage at existing licences. and costs are higher, but rewards could poten-
“Today’s area allocation is … an important tially be much greater. Norway’s government
contribution to ensuring that Norway remains notably decided in November to hold off on
a safe and predictable supplier of oil and gas to further frontier rounds until 2025,, as part of a
Europe,” Norwegian Petroleum Minister Terje budget agreement with the opposition Socialist
Aasland said in a statement. Left, which is opposed to further exploration.
Norway has ramped up oil and gas supply to The pause on frontier licensing will have no
Europe over the past year, helping the continent impact on Norwegian oil and gas supply in the
replace lost Russian volumes. It is now Europe’s short term, but could hinder investment and
biggest gas supplier, and is set to retain this title result in lower growth prospects for production
for years to come, assuming there is no signif- in the late 2020s. In general, though, the outlook
icant rapprochement in energy ties between for the Norwegian upstream sector is bright.
Moscow and the West. Its pipeline gas exports The high cost of gas, as well as a tax incentive
to continental Europe and the UK shot up to an plan introduced by the Norwegian parliament
11-month high in December, totalling 9.99 bcm at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, has
in the month, up 8% from the level in November. led to a flurry of new investment decisions on
The number of offers in the latest APA round projects this year. Just in late November, state-
was down from 53 in the contest that wrapped owned Equinor and its partners signed off on the
up in January 2022, and from 61 in the one a year NOK14.8bn ($1.44bn) development of the Arc-
earlier. tic Irpa gas discovery, which will yield approxi-
The companies offered licences were Aker BP, mately 20 bcm of gas for export to Europe over

Shell, Conedo, ConocoPhillips, DNO, Equinor, its lifetime. Production is on track to start in the
Harbour, Inpex, Kufpec, Lime, Longboat, Lotos, final quarter of 2026, and the field will continue
M Vest, Neptune, Okea, OMV Pandion, Petrolia flowing until 2039.
NOCO, PGNiG, Source, Sval, TotalEnergies, Var “These are remarkable investments for the
Energi, Wellesley and Wintershall Dea. future. This will help ensure that Norway can
“It’s gratifying to see such diversity in the continue to be a reliable supplier of energy to
player landscape, and that the companies are Europe,” the NPD’s director general, Torgeir
interested in APAs and the Norwegian shelf,” Stordal, commented last week on the number of
the NPD’s director for licence management, new projects getting a greenlight. ™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 02 12•January•2022