OMV has been awarded six additional offshore exploration licenses in Norway, acting as operator for two of them.
The licenses were awarded by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy out of the 22nd Exploration license round. The signing with the Ministry took place on Friday, June 28. These awards rank OMV in the first place for non-Norwegian companies and as an overall second behind Statoil in this licensing round. The licenses are located in OMV Norge’s main interest areas in offshore Mid Norway and in the Barents Sea.
Two of the new awards are aimed at exploring for gas resources in the deep water area of the Vøring Basin in the Northern part of the Norwegian Sea. Both licenses are operated by OMV (60%) with PGNiG (40%) as partner. The awards of PL 702 and PL 703 are strategically supporting the long term perspective of OMV’s current investments in the Aasta Hansteen and Polarled projects, designed as a future gas hub.
The four new licenses in the Barents Sea are a significant expansion of OMV’s existing portfolio in this emerging area. OMV Norge is a 20% joint venture partner in all four licenses with Statoil, Repsol, RWE and GDF SUEZ as operators. The new licenses PL 615 B and PL 723 are currently the northernmost licenses in Norway and located on the Hoop High, a Barents Sea frontier area. This area will see exploration drilling by OMV as operator in the already existing PL 537 license (Wisting) this summer and by Statoil at PL 615 (Apollo) in 2014, therefore the new awards secure interesting follow-up potential. The licenses PL 711 and PL 721 are at the western margin of the Barents Sea, which is also seeing increased activities and are expanding company’s positions there.
Jaap Huijskes, OMV Executive Board member, responsible for Exploration and Production ,: “Norway is one of the most important growth regions for OMV as the company focuses on exploration and production. After this licensing round OMV Norge has now a total of 23 offshore licenses which is a solid basis for the further development of our operations in Norway.”
The awards are an important success for OMV within the highly competitive Norwegian licensing rounds. In the Barents Sea area OMV has been working intensively to identify new exploration potential and has built up considerable regional experience. Overall OMV is expecting to participate in up to eight exploration wells in the Barents Sea until mid-2014, three of the wells would be operated. The operated licenses in offshore Mid Norway are part of OMV’s long term strategy to develop this part on the Norwegian Continental Shelf to become a producing core area.
Press Release, July 02, 2013