The petroleum resources regulator said that Norway’s undiscovered resources share in the Barents Sea had gone up to nearly 65% from 50%. This was after a recent mapping of a new area of 170,000 square kilometers in the eastern part of the sea.
The new area is 10,000km2 larger than the Norwegian North Sea and its resources are thought to be at 1.4 billion standard cubic metres of oil equivalents.
According to NPD, the resources in the new area match up to 14 Johan Castberg fields, and are five times more than the Snøhvit field.
A major portion of the new area is in the previously disputed region, stated NPD, adding that most of the new details were gathered following the 2011-implementation of the demarcation line agreement with Russia.
NPD Director General Bente Nyland said that the figure bearing some degree of uncertainty may turn out to be lower or higher than the new estimations. As per Nyland, 60% of the undiscovered resources could constitute liquids with the remainder being gas.
The estimated total resources in the mapped portion of the northern Barents Sea have been found to be on par with those present in southern Barents Sea. However, with the northern part only being half of the southern part of the sea, the former has twice the resource potential per square kilometer, said Nyland.
In another statement, NPD said that it was expecting a record number of 15 exploration wells to be drilled in the Barents Sea in the current year, two more than the previous record held in 2014.
Image: NPD’s newly mapped area of the Barents Sea. Photo: courtesy of Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.
