Statoil records significant NCS discovery

STAVANGER, Norway, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- A major oil discovery in the Barents Sea confirms the resource potential of the Norwegian continental shelf, energy company Statoil said.

Statoil announced that it, along with its partners at Eni Norge and Petoro, made a "substantial" discovery in the Havis prospect in the Barents Sea, the second in the region in nine months.

"We are about to realize the Barents Sea as a core area on the Norwegian continental shelf," says Erik Strand Tellefsen, a vice president at Statoil, in a statement.

Havis is about four miles southwest of the Skrugrard discovery, a major find posted by Statoil in April. Havis is estimated to hold at least 200 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent.

Last week, Statoil trumpeted its success at the NCS. The company said it expected to maintain a production capacity from the NCS of around 600,000 barrels of oil per day for the rest of the decade.

Statoil last year recorded one of the largest oil finds on the NCS ever at its Aldous/Avaldsnes field. Statoil estimated there were 900 million-1.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil equivalent there, twice the previous estimate.