The Norwegian oil company DNO announced on Monday that it had discovered natural gas in Norwegian waters of the North Sea, which it said could be the largest discovery in the country for ten years. The gas and condensate deposit found on the so-called Carmen prospect would contain between 120 and 230 million barrels of oil equivalent (Mboe), DNO said in a press release.
If the midpoint of this range (175 Mboe) were to be reached, it would make it the biggest discovery on the Norwegian continental shelf since 2013, he said. “Norway is a perpetual gift,” commented group CEO Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani. Despite the climate emergency, Norway, which last year became Europe’s largest gas supplier in the wake of the war in Ukraine, is struggling to break its dependence on the hydrocarbons that have made its fortune.
Last month, Oslo, to the chagrin of environmental activists, gave its approval to 19 oil and gas projects (opening or extending fields, investments aimed at increasing the rate of hydrocarbon recovery, etc.) total value over 17 billion euros. Since the North Sea has already been widely exploited, important discoveries have become rarer in recent years.
Carmen remains of a limited size compared to other Norwegian deposits such as the behemoths Statfjord, Ekofisk, Johan Sverdrup or even Troll whose reserves for some of them exceed 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Its proximity to other deposits already discovered or exploited should, however, facilitate its development. In addition to DNO, which holds a 30% share, the project partners are the Norwegian Wellesley Petroleum (50%), Equinor and Aker BP (10% each).