Equinor awarded 26 new production licences on the Norwegian continental shelf
Equinor has been awarded
26 new production licences by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE)
in the 2022 Award in Predefined Areas (APA) – 18 licences as operator,
and eight as partner.
“The APA rounds are important, and we are very pleased with today’s
awards,” said Jez Avery, Equinor’s senior vice president for subsurface
in Exploration & Production Norway.
The production from existing oil and gas fields will decline, and continued
exploration and replenishment is essential to maintaining long-term, important
energy deliveries from Norway.Our analyses show that active exploration
activity is the most important single measure to ensure continued value
creation towards 2030, and beyond.
The production licences
are divided as follows: 16 in the North Sea, nine in the Norwegian Sea,
and one in the Barents Sea.
In 2023 the company plans to participate in 25 exploration wells, most
of them around existing infrastructure.
“Around 80 percent of the exploration wells will be drilled in known,
mature areas. Discoveries near existing infrastructure require less volume
to be commercially developed, and can be quickly put on stream and with
low CO2 emissions. We thus maximize the value creation from existing
infrastructure that has been developed over a long period on the NCS,”
says Averty,
“Exploration is essential to our ambition to transform the NCS from
and oil and gas province to a broad energy province. New gas volumes will
be key to enabling the development of new value chains for hydrogen for
Europe,” Averty adds.