Key Norwegian oil industry representatives remain at odds over how to develop oil and gas resources in the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea. While the Norwegian government wants the regional oil resources to be taken to land-based terminal and processing facilities, the industry itself continues to prefer floating solutions for the projects.
However, the industry could be open for a compromise if the Norwegian state takes a bigger part of the costs. According to oil and gas analyst Hans Henrik Ramm, the Norwegian government should give the industry beneficial tax conditions for Barents infrastructure objects.
”The bigger the tax exemption, the better effect”, Ramm says to Offshore.no. ”We can imagine a system where field center development qualifies for extra exemptions”, he adds.
The discussion on development models for the region gains strength as Statoil and the other companies represented in the region have failed to discover much-desired additional hydrocarbons.
Statoil has this summer made only minor oil and gas discoveries in the Barents Sea and neither the Atlantis nor the Apollo wells proved commercially viable. The company has also decided to postpone its choice of development model for the Johan Castberg field until 2015.
The Norwegian oil company has now signed a contract with the Kongsberg Oil & Gas Technologies AS, a subsidiary of Kongsberg Gruppen, on the delivery of an Extended Concept Study and Pre-Front End Engineering Design (FEED) to the Castberg project.
The concept phase includes design optimisations, value engineering on alternative technical solutions, the company informs in a press release. In addition, KONGSBERG will have the role as leading interface contractor for the project interfaces.
