The head of Statoil’s exploration team has said he still sees the potential for some fairly significant new discoveries to be made in the UK North Sea.
Tim Dodson, executive vice-president for exploration, said the Norwegian oil firm would start looking in the UK North Sea for new exploration opportunities through the 27th licensing round, but would also farm in to already owned acreage.
He said it had been about 10 years since the firm had looked at the North Sea seriously but that now it saw new ways of analysing prospects in mature areas which had previously been abandoned. Mr Dodson said he thought new technology, which had been used in Norway, had yet to be fully applied in the UK, adding: “I have decided I want to have one more look at this”
Last year, the firm, alongside Lundin, discovered the Johan Sverdrup field, previously known as Aldous/Avaldsnes, thought to be the third largest Norwegian find.
It used new ways to interpret geological formations and seismic data to help open it up.
Mr Dodson said: “The UK and Norway are part of the same basin. The UK North Sea has generated an awful lot of oil and gas, and I still think there could be potential for making some fairly significant oil and gas discoveries there.”
