NEWS

Statoil estimates the volumes in Havis to be between 200 and 300 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalents (o.e.). The updated total volume estimate for the Skrugard and Havis discoveries is in the region of 400 – 600 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalents.

Havis lies approximately 7 kilometers southwest of the Skrugard discovery in the Barents Sea. Havis lies within the same production license, but forms an independent structure. There is no communication between the two discoveries.

“The discovery’s volume and reservoir properties make it Skrugard’s twin. Skrugard and Havis open up a new petroleum province in the North,” said Helge Lund, President and CEO of Statoil.

Øystein Noreng, professor of oil at the BI Norwegian School of Management in Oslo, told NRK that the new discoveries on the NCS show that Norway’s oil fairy tale is far from over.

“The area’s size and prospects indicate that the Norwegian petroleum activities may have a resource base for the rest of this century,” wrote Noreng.

It has been a quite a year for Statoil: The Skrugard prospect was characterized as the most important discovery for ten years when it was discovered in the Barents Sea in April 2011. In October 2011, the Aldous and Avaldsnes discoveries were twice as large as previously thought, making it one of the larger finds ever in Norway.

Until 2011, the Barents Sea was marked by many disappointments in the form of empty wells.

“The Skrugard and Havis discoveries will be important for industrial development and will further boost activity in the supplier industry, providing new jobs and generating spin-off effects throughout the region,” said CEO Helge Lund.

Professor Dag Harald Claes at the University of Oslo told NRK he is not surprised that there are new major discoveries on the Norwegian continental shelf, and show that pessimism has turned to optimism in the Barents Sea.

“There is plenty of oil left to find. The predicted end of the ‘oil age’ for Norway and the world is continually shifting forward. It’s always been like this, and it will be for decades to come,” said Claes.