NEWS

Resources at the field are now seen at 1.8 billion to 2.9 billion barrels of oil equivalent, Stavanger-based Statoil said today. That compares with a previous range of 1.8 billion to 3.6 billion barrels, based on estimates provided by Statoil and Lundin Petroleum AB. (LUPE) Production start was pushed back a year to the end of 2019.

“We would paint this as a ’blemish’ on the Utsira High,” the area of the North Sea where Sverdrup was discovered, Alex Gheorghe, an analyst at RS Platou Markets AS, said in an e-mail. It’s “very disappointing to see both Statoil and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate/government lose control of the situation, given the strong economics of the project and impact on Norway.”

Discovered in two parts by Lundin in 2010 and Statoil in 2011, Sverdrup renewed optimism in Norway’s oil industry after a decade of falling production from aging North Sea fields. The oil discovery, which may be Norway’s biggest since Statfjord in 1974 and the third-largest ever, could supply as much as 40 percent of the nation’s crude output by the middle of the next decade, industry consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. said.