Statoil failed to find oil in the northernmost site ever drilled off Norway’s Arctic tip.
The Apollo well, which had been the focus of a standoff with Greenpeace activists that occupied its rig last month, was “dry,” the Stavanger-based Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said in a statement on Thursday.
The well was delayed last month when 15 Greenpeace members boarded the Transocean – operated rig as it was headed to drill in the Barents Sea.
The activists were eventually removed by Norwegian police. Greenpeace and other environmental groups say the drilling campaign is too close to the Bear Island reserve and the edge of the polar ice cap, where an oil spill could hurt vulnerable ecosystems.
The Transocean Spitsbergen rig is now heading even further north in the same license to drill the Atlantis well, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the mainland, the NPD said.
Norway, western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer is seeking to unlock resources in the Arctic to maintain output after a 20 percent decline over the past decade as North Sea fields are depleted.
In addition to Apollo and Atlantis, Statoil is planning a third well this year in the Hoop area. Oil was discovered in the area in 2013 by Austria’s OMV.
Norway’s Climate and Environment Ministry last month rejected a complaint by Greenpeace to stop the drilling.
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