Norway, Russia Cooperate in Arctic Oil Hunt

Russia and Norway will soon sign a deal to acquire new seismic data from the two countries' Arctic Barents Sea maritime border region to boost the search for oil and gas, the Norwegian oil minister told Reuters on Monday.

"Now we have come to an agreement which will allow shooting seismic data across the border," Tord Lien, Norway's minister of petroleum and energy said after a meeting with Russia's natural resources minister, Sergei Donskoi, in Oslo.

"This will make it possible to get a better picture of the reservoirs which cross the border," he said, adding that he expected to sign the deal before Dec. 24.

The two neighbouring countries have already signed a deal to exchange older seismic data from the border zone.

Norway's Statoil (STO) and Sweden's Lundin are among the firms that have previously found oil and gas in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea.

Reporting by Stine Jacobsen