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Putin awards Norwegian Kara Sea drillers

John Fredriksen and Tor Olav Trøim have been awarded with the Russian Order of Friendship.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has decided to give Rosneft’s partners and contractors at the Universitetskya field in the Kara Sea the Order of Friendship.

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Norwegians John Fredriksen – President of Seadrill, and board member of the same company Tor Olav Trøim, have been awarded with the medal, along with representatives from the company Schlumberger.

The businesspeople are awarded the Order of Friendship for their “substantial contribution in the organization and implementation of drilling works at the Universitetskaya-1 prospective in the Kara Sea, which lead to the opening of the Pobeda field”, Arctic Info writes.

President Putin also expressed his gratitude for participation in the drilling operations to 29 employees of different foreign companies – rig superintendents, drillers, engineers etc from Halliburton, North Atlantic Drilling, Schlumberger and ExxonMobil.

The University-1 well in the Kara Sea holds 128,7 million tons of first-class oil and 391,9 billion cubic meters of gas. The well was drilled by Seadrill’s rig “West Alpha”, with drilling operations ending on October 10 2014, only one week before new western sanctions targeting the Russian oil industry came into force.