LNG

Norway's energy minister Terje Aasland has insisted on the country’s sovereign rights to drill in the Barents Sea to sustain oil and LNG exports at current levels until 2035, even though the EU is debating a moratorium.

A review of the EU’s Arctic policy running through March 16, 2026, places fresh emphasis on gas from Norway’s Barents Sea which could lower Europe’s reliance on LNG imports. The resource base is substantial: The parts of the Barents Sea already open to exploration, according to Norwegian Offshore Directorate estimates, hold around 3.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of natural gas, or about 22 trillion cubic feet.

Novatek, operator of the Yamal LNG plant and lead developer of the Arctic II LNG project, has signed an agreement with Japanese shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines to cooperate on the construction of LNG trans-shipment stations on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East and near the Barents Sea port of Murmansk.

Aker Solutions, the Norwegian energy project engineering and oil and gas services company seeking more LNG work in subsea, gas compression and floating facility design said its first-half order intake amounted to 14.3 billion Norwegian crowns ($1.76Bln), almost double the amount of a year ago.

Norway has awarded a record number of 75 licences for natural gas and oil exploration in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea with Norwegian company Statoil having the highest number of awards and one of the other biggest gainers being Germany’s Deutsche Erdoel AG (DEA) and Wintershall who will merge soon into a single company.

Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden has signed a further agreement with Russian natural gas company Gazprom to make progress for plans to build an LNG export plant on the northwest Russian coast with cargoes pointing at Europe and South America.

Norwegian energy company Statoil, operator of the only baseload liquefied natural gas export plant in Europe at Hammerfest, aims to conduct a major exploration campaign in several parts of the Barents Sea in 2017.

Aug 26 (LNGJ) - Russia's state-owned Rosneft is gearing up to take control of Pechora LNG - a new $4 billion liquefaction project planned in the Barents Sea that is projected to produce 2.6 million tonnes a year of LNG by 2018.

Output could be boosted to as much as 10 mtpa in the following decade, dependent on sustained demand growth in Asia and a recovery in Europe.