courtesy Transocean

Italian oil company ENI has been granted the acreage needed to appraisal drill the Goliat field for area finds, it was understood Monday.

The thumbs-up from Norwegian authorities flies in the face of the country’s “Greens” who once vowed to fight expansion on License 229. A thin band of coastline straddled by Goliat marks the no-drill zones on a new map defined by a national Management Plan recently drawn up for the Barents Sea.

For ENI, recognition of an original license extending over the future no-drill zone means development for Goliat, where nine out of 10 development concepts are believed to favour floating production, with either sub-sea tiebacks to Snoehvit or a shuttle-tanker service.

Some 40 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalents are proved in the area. Appraisal wells this winter showed oil in three columns which lay in original acreage at first denied ENI while the country awaited a management plan for Arctic resources, including fish and wildlife.

Operator Eni Norge AS (65%), Statoil ASA (20%) and Det Norske Oljeselskap (15%) will submit development plans a new License 229B to Parliament by 2008.