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Statoil staggers in Barents project

Statoil CEO Helge Lund is under pressure from the Norwegian government to land oil from the Johan Castberg field.

We need more time to decide how to develop the Johan Castberg field in the Barents Sea, Statoil CEO Helge Lund says.

Location

The Norwegian company rejoiced when it in 2011 found significant volumes of oil at the Arctic field. Since then however, a string of dry wells have been drilled in adjacent waters subsequently bringing the company in doubts about a suitable project development model.

“We need more time to mature the concept,” Statoil CEO Helge Lund told Reuters at  a press conference this week. “It won’t be too long before we say more”, he added without specifying any time perspectives. Top Statoil representatives have earlier stressed that ”there is not any doubt that this project will be developed”.

If no other major discoveried are made in the area, Statoil would prefer the field development by means of a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility. Meanwhile, the Norwegian government is pushing on the oil company for a landing of the Castberg oil. As previously reported, Oil Minister Tord Lien wants oil from the Castberg field to be sent to a land-based facility at Veines on the country’s Arctic coast. “The landing of the oil will help establish the infrastructure needed also for other field resources in the area”, he told underlined at a recent conference. He is supported by the Norwegian Petroluem Directorate.

The estimated resources of the Johan Castberg are between 500-600 million barrels of oil. The license is operated by Statoil (50%) together with Eni (30%) and Petoro (20%).The structure is located more than 200 kilometers northwest of North Cape.