Languages

Border agreement sparked Lukoil’s interest

Oil company Lukoil

The signing of the agreement of delineation of the Barents Sea was what made Lukoil turn its eyes towards the Norwegian shelf.

Location

The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy last week informed that Lukoil has been pre-qualified for operations at the Norwegian shelf. In the company’s first comments on the approval, Lukoil says what helped spark its interest in the project was last year’s border agreement between Moscow and Oslo on delineation of the Barents Sea, where rich reserves could come to light.

- It made everyone excited, said LUKoil’s a spokesman Grigory Volchek to The Moscow Times. - If there is a definite borderline, some work can be planned for that area.

Norway’s Petroleum and Energy Ministry posted a notice on its web site last week that it had pre-qualified Lukoil as an “operator on the Norwegian continental shelf” - ending at least eight months of scrutinizing the company’s technical competence, health, safety and environmental standards, and financial capacity.

The pre-qualification means that the company will be offered an assessment on its potentials in the area.

Lukoil will not seek only Barents Sea fields in Norway, Volchek said: -We will target whatever they put up for tenders.

Norway’s state controlled Statoil - a partner of LUKoil’s in developing one of the world’s biggest oil fields, the West Qurna 2 project in Iraq - could also join forces with the Russians in Norway. - We are open to discuss potential future opportunities and to work with the company on relevant future projects, said Statoil spokesman Jannik Lindbaek Jr. to The Moscow Times.

Lukoil is the second biggest oil company in Russia and has operations all over the country as well as abroad. In the Barents Region, the company is heavily engaged in the Timan-Pechora province, where it operates a number of fields and controls key infrastructure like ports, terminals and pipelines.