Statoil: No Barents Sea Drilling in 2015

Norwegian energy firm Statoil (STO) will not drill exploration wells in the Arctic Barents Sea this year after a failed campaign in 2014, exploration chief Tim Dodson told Offshore.no.

Statoil's Norwegian exploration will concentrate on the mature North Sea and areas near its Asta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea, with a focus on resources that can be tied into existing platforms, Dodson said.

"We are going to drill in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea," Dodson said in a video interview. "We have no plans, after the big exploration campaign, to drill in the Barents Sea."

Dodson said Statoil would still drill a "relatively large number" of exploration wells in Norway this year and it would reveal the exact number at its strategy update on Feb 6, Dodson said.

Statoil spent in the range of $3.5 billion last year to drill around 50 exploration wells but its campaigns in the Arctic and Angola failed, and it has released several rigs as a result. (Reporting by Joachim Dagenborg