Norway welcomes BP, Rosneft deal
State Secretary Per Rune Henriksen in the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy encourage that international oil companies are being introduced to the Russian Arctic shelf.
Rosneft and BP announced last Friday the agreement to jointly explore and develop three license blocks in the Kara Sea.
Qouted by Reuters, Henriksen says Norway has employed international oil companies in its Arctic region for decades, because this adds to pluralism in a constructive and rewarding manner.
Read also: Kara Sea drilling to start in 2015
The Kara Sea is east of Novaya Zemlya in the Russian Arctic, and the licenses in question cover an area of approximately 125,000 square kilometres.
Earlier in January BarentsObserver reported that Russian oil giant Lukoil has applied for a pre-qualification as operator on the Norwegian shelf.
The application from Russia’s largest private oil company came in just before Christmas and is now under consideration by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate and the Ministry of Labour.Many international oil companies have shown interest for the blocks on the Norwegian shelf in last year’s licensing round.
The list of oil companies that have applied for production licenses in the Norwegian Sea and frontier areas in the Barents Sea is published at the portal of the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
In October last year, Norway and Russia signed the deal on maritime delimitation and cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean.
