Oil Exploration

With oil prices falling to a four-year low, the development of two frontier basins in northwest Europe, the Barents Sea and the West of Shetland (WoS), is likely to be postponed and further progress will require cost reductions, according to an analyst with research and consulting firm GlobalData.

Both Chevron and Statoil, operators of the WoS Rosebank and Barents Sea Johan Castberg fields, respectively, are continuing to delay their Final Investment Decisions (FIDs) for the projects, which have 240 and 545 million barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable reserves, respectively.

Matthew Ingham, GlobalData’s Upstream Analyst covering Europe, states that the sanction of these projects is crucial to permitting the construction of much-needed infrastructure that will provide an export route for the region’s hydrocarbons, of which there are thought to be vast reserves.

Tags: GlobalData