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Rosneft goes to Norway

Igor Sechin and his Rosneft teams up Statoil's Helge Lund in the formerly disputed waters in the Barents Sea. Photo: Rosneft

Oil major Rosneft will establish a subsidiary in Norway, which is to develop Norwegian Arctic fields together with Statoil.

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The documents signed on Thursday by Statoil and Rosneft during the Sankt Petersburg Economic Forum are part of the comprehensive cooperation agreement concluded by the two companies on 5 May, a deal which gives Statoil a 33,4 percent stake in Rosneft’s promising Perseevsky field in the Barents Sea. 

Now it is Rosneft’s turn to move across the border. Yesterday’s agreements signed in Sankt Petersburg will give the Russian oil giant a foothold on the Norwegian shelf. And it is the Norwegian Arctic which is of prime interest to Rosneft.

The Russian oil company, which now is headed by former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, has the Arctic as a top area of priority and controls licenses to several promising areas in the formerly disputed waters in the Barents Sea.

“The documents signed today testify to a high level of mutual confidence between the two companies and great teamwork by their project groups. Our partnership gives Rosneft access to substantial resources in the Norwegian section of the Barents Sea while putting together accumulated expertise and cutting edge technologies of the two companies will ensure the efficient development of tight oil fields in Russia”, Statoil CEO Helge Lund says in a press release.

“The partnership between Rosneft and Statoil is an opportunity to give additional substance to the ambitions of both Norway and Russia to strengthen energy cooperation in the High North following last year’s ratification of the agreement on delimitation of the continental shelf and economic zones in the Barents Sea”, Lund adds. 

Rosneft will now initiate the process to become pre-qualified as licensee on the Norwegian Continental Shelf with the goal to take part in the 22nd Norwegian Licensing Round.

Until now, no Russian company has been active on the Norwegian shelf, although Lukoil recenlty pre-qualified itself for the area.

According to Rosneft, the deal includes joint evaluation of fields, which constitute a part of the two companies’ zone of joint interest and an ambition to jointly take part in field tenders. The Russian company will get 33,33 percent stakes in the joint ventures, a press release from the company reads.