Arctic Offshore Oil Exploration – Statoil, Rosneft Co-operate

Statoil & Rosneft have signed a co-operation agreement to jointly search for oil in the Barents Sea, See of Okhotsk

Statoil and Rosneft have signed a cooperation agreement whereby they will jointly explore offshore frontier areas of Russia and Norway and to conduct joint technical studies on two onshore Russian assets.

Helge Lund, CEO, Statoil (STO) said: “This cooperation agreement is an important milestone in Statoil’s exploration activity in Russia. The agreement secures a long term collaborative position with Rosneft in large, prospective frontier areas in the Barents Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk. By building on both companies’ competence and experience, this agreement is a significant step further in the industrial development of the Northern areas, says Helge Lund, CEO of Statoil.

Under the agreement, Statoil and Rosneft will set up joint ventures, with Statoil holding 33,33% in each. The partners will jointly explore the Perseevsky licence in in the Russian part of the Central Barents Sea and three licences - the Kashevarovsky, Lisyansky and Magadan-1 - north of Sakhalin island in the Sea of Okhotsk. The four offshore licences cover an area of more than 100,000 square kilometres, equalling approximately 200 blocks on the Norwegian continental shelf.

“We aim for early access at scale in new and promising basins, positioning us for high impact exploration. This agreement is at the core of our strategy, supporting our long term growth ambitions,” says Lund.

Statoil will fund the initial exploration necessary to determine the commercial value of the four licences.