China National Offshore Oil (CNOOC) has teamed up with Eykon Energy to apply for a licence to explore and produce oil and gas in Arctic waters offshore Iceland.
China National Offshore Oil (CNOOC) has teamed up with Eykon Energy to apply for a licence to explore and produce oil and gas in Arctic waters offshore Iceland.
If CNOOC’s application is accepted and a licence awarded, it would be the Chinese company’s first venture into offshore Arctic oil drilling, reported The Wall Street Journal.
The company said it had been invited by the Government of Iceland and Eykon Energy to participate in their offshore oil and gas exploration project, which is currently under negotiation.
CNOOC and other Chinese oil companies held meetings with the head of Russia’s state-controlled Rosneft, Igor Sechin, during his visit to China at the start of 2013, about potential offshore projects in the Russian Arctic.
Earlier in 2013, Iceland awarded two licences from its first round to sell acreage in the Dreki area, north-east of Iceland and neighbouring coastal waters in oilproducing Norway.
Iceland’s National Energy Authority hydrocarbon licensing manager Thorarinn Sveinn Arnarson said that Eykon Energy applied for a licence in the tender round but could not proceed without a partner.
"Now we can evaluate the technical merits of the application and the qualifications of the companies, technical and financial, before we make our decision," he said, noting that, if the partnership qualifies for the round, the licence is expected to be awarded by the end of Q3.