NEWS

Even as it plans for a lean 2015, ConocoPhillips is flowing its first barrels of oil from a major project in the Norwegian North Sea.

It’s the Houston oil explorer’s second big startup off the coast of Norway since late 2013. The firm said Monday that its newly productive Eldfisk II project, alongside its other Norwegian offshore wells, will boost its output 60,000 barrels a day by 2017.

The Eldfisk field is one of four offshore oil regions that make up Norway’s Greater Ekofisk Area, a field 200 miles southwest of Stavanger operated by ConocoPhillips and co-owned with Total, Eni and others.

ConocoPhillips, which produced 1.52 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in the first nine months of 2014, plans to drill 40 new water-injection and oil wells at its Norwegian field as it boosts its output there over the next three years.

The company is pumping the new barrels of oil in Norwegian waters amid a price plunge that has sent crude down more than 50 percent since July.

In response to the price fall, ConocoPhillips said last month it will pare its capital spending by 20 percent this year to $13.5 billion.

Still, the Houston company expects to produce 3 percent more oil this year than it did in 2014.