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OIL

Norway hikes oil and gas reserves estimate

Norway last week increased estimates of undiscovered oil and gas in its waters by 15 percent, much of it in the Barents Sea.

The additional resources, most of which are natural gas, amount to around 2.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.

The increased reserve estimates follow the 2011 signing of an agreement between Norway and Russia on their maritime border in the Barents Sea after a 40-year dispute, granting the Scandinavian country an area covering some 44,000 square kilometres.

A seismic survey carried out since then estimated the resources in the once disputed part of the Barents at 1.9 billion boe, out of which 15 percent could be oil, the agency said.

The new estimates also included the waters around the Jan Mayen island, 500 kilometres east of Greenland, but uncertainty was higher there due to less detailed knowledge of the area, it said.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said the Jan Mayen area could hold 566 million boe, but also substantially more — or nothing at all.

Norway is one of the world's biggest exporters of oil and gas. In January, it produced 1.473 million barrels of oil per day and sold 10.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas.

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OIL

NGOs take Norway to European Court over Arctic oil exploration

Two NGOs and six young climate activists have decided to take Norway to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to demand the cancellation of oil permits in the Arctic, Greenpeace announced on Tuesday.

NGOs take Norway to European Court over Arctic oil exploration
Northern Norway. Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash.

It’s the latest turn in a legal tussle between environmental organisations Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth Norway on one side and the Norwegian state on the other.

The organisations are demanding the government cancel 10 oil exploration licenses in the Barents Sea awarded in 2016, arguing it was unconstitutional.

Referring to the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the organisations claim that the oil licenses violated article 112 of Norway’s constitution, guaranteeing everyone the right to a healthy environment.”

The six activists, alongside Greenpeace Nordic and Young Friends of the Earth Norway, hope that the European Court of Human Rights will hear their case and find that Norway’s oil expansion is in breach of human rights,” Greenpeace said in a statement.

In December, Norway’s Supreme Court rejected the claim brought by the organisations, their third successive legal defeat.

READ MORE: Norway sees oil in its future despite IEA’s warnings 

While most of the judges on the court agreed that article 112 could be invoked if the state failed to meet its climate and environmental obligations– they did not think it was applicable in this case.

The court also held that the granting of oil permits was not contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in part because they did not represent “a real and immediate risk” to life and physical integrity.

“The young activists and the environmental organisations argue that this judgment was flawed, as it discounted the significance of their environmental constitutional rights and did not take into account an accurate assessment of the consequences of climate change for the coming generations,” Greenpeace said.

On Friday, the Norwegian government unveiled a white paper on the country’s energy future, which still includes oil exploration despite a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA recently warned that all future fossil fuel projects must be scrapped if the world is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The Norwegian case is an example of a global trend in which climate activists are increasingly turning to courts to pursue their agenda.

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