Aker BP has proven the presence of gas in appraisal well 6507/2-7 S 230 kilometres offshore Sandnessjøen in the Norwegian Sea, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate announced on Thursday.
North Sea oil and gas operators are not just facing the prospect of higher windfall taxes, they are now also finding it more difficult to get loans from UK banks.
The windfall profit tax was imposed on the energy industry in 2022 amid record profits resulting from the supply uncertainty in oil and gas following the incursion of Russian troops into Ukraine.
According to data from Norwegian investment bank SpareBank 1 Markets, reserve-based lending to oil and gas operators in the UK’s North Sea had fallen by some 40-50% since the introduction of the windfall profit tax.
Italy’s power utility Enel has become the latest international energy investor to scrap plans for participating in the energy transition of Vietnam.
According to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate’s projected scenarios leading up to 2050, the difference between high and low production of oil and gas can amount to nearly an entire government pension fund.
One of the North Sea’s biggest gas producers is threatening to end investment in Britain because the tax regime has become too unstable to support offshore energy producers.
Norway produced 122.9 million cubic meters (4.3 billion cubic feet) of oil equivalent in the first half (H1) of 2024, up 6.2 MMcm (219 MMcf) compared to the same period last year as natural gas output kept growing year-on-year in the six months running.
Equinor and its partners Petoro, Vår Energi, and TotalEnergies EP Norge started production from the first Lavrans well in the Kristin South area offshore Norway on July 7, 2024.
Vår Energi ASA has reported a successful discovery at its operated Cerisa exploration well in production license PL 636 offshore Norway.
All eyes are fixed on US inflation data as crude oil prices have maintained their hot streak and are set to end this week with a third weekly gain. Surging geopolitical tensions around Israel and Lebanon have overshadowed slackening economic data from the US in May, with every single day this week posting a day-on-day increase and Brent set to finish the week at $87 per barrel.
The company has discovered gross recoverable hydrocarbons of up to 39 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe) in the North Sea.