Norway Petroleum Industry. Xxxxxx Xxxxxx in his award winning book on the world history of oil “The prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power” describes the discovery of oil and gas in North Sea as the “biggest play” so far in the history of petroleum and from an energy-strategy point of view. He thinks that this discovery was more significant than the findings in the Middle East, South America and Alaska. In the late 1950’s, very few people believed that the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) might conceal rich oil and gas deposits. However, the gas discovery at Groningen in the Netherlands in 1959 demanded geologists to change their thinking on the petroleum potential of the North Sea [32]. With the Ekofisk discovery in 1969, the Norwegian oil adventure began to xxxxxxx. Production from the oil field starts on 9 June 1971. 2004 was a record year for petroleum production on the NCS. Norway is member of the International Energy Agency (IEA) but not of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Norway is the world's third largest exporter of oil and gas [33]. Total oil production (including NGL and condensate) is about 2,8 million barrels per day and net gas production exceeds 3 trillion cubic feet a year. The first exploration well was drilled in 1966 and since then 1100 exploration xxxxx have been drilled, proving 60 billion barrels out of recoverable resources. The average technical discovery rate is about 40 % [34]. The mean estimate for the undiscovered resources is 21 billion barrels out of recoverable resources, equivalent to the quantity that has been produced to date. The NCS can be divided into three petroleum provinces; the North Sea, Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. These areas are differs in geology and exploration maturity. With highly matured and well-developed infrastructure for production and transportation, North Sea is leading. As far as numbers of fields are concern, Norwegian Sea is ahead. But deep- water fields are still un-explored. The southern part of Barents Sea has been successfully explored, but eastern and northern parts are still unexplored, where geological data indicate large structures with petroleum potential. Norway has a partly privatized energy sector, with government majority ownership of key company Statoil Hydro, formed recently from Statoil and the oil and gas interests of Norsk Hydro. Norway has mature and highly competitive upstream oil and gas segment, featuring most key national and international companies [35]. The d...
