New licenses offshore Greenland

Statoil and its consortium partners – Shell and GDF Suez – have been awarded two large exploration blocks in the Baffin Bay bid round in West Greenland. Shell will be the operator of both blocks.

Blocks 5 and 8, where Greenland’s national oil company Nunaoil will have a carried interest during the exploration phase, are 9,991 and 10,618 square kilometres, respectively. Each block is equivalent to approximately 15 Norwegian blocks.  

“We are looking forward to exploring these new frontier opportunities in the Baffin Bay together with our partners in the bid consortium and in close cooperation with the Greenland authorities,” says Tim Dodson, Statoil’s senior vice president for global exploration.   

“These awards increase the optionality of our exploration portfolio. While early access to such frontier opportunities entails more uncertainties related to probability of discovery, the potential reward of one or more sizeable discoveries may be high. Together with our partners, we will use all of our experience and competence from more than 30 years of oil and gas operations in harsh environments on the Norwegian continental shelf,” Dodson continues.

This is not the first time Statoil has carried out activities in Greenland. In the 1990s, Statoil drilled an exploration well in the Fylla area west of Greenland – but the company relinquished this exploration license in 2002. Statoil is also part of the Kanumas group in East Greenland.

Statoil already holds important offshore positions in sub-Arctic conditions in Norway, Russia and Canada.

Source: Press release