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Swedish oil firm Lundin makes new Norway find

Swedish oil firm Lundin Petroleum said on Monday it had made a potentially significant oil find off Norway, near another discovery that renewed explorers' interest in the North Sea.

Published: 9 April 2013 09:36 CEST

Swedish oil firm Lundin makes new Norway find

File photo: LC Noettaasen

"A gross oil column in excess of 40 metres has been proven" at the Luno II well, the company said in a statement, adding that the oil was of good quality.

The Swedish company said it would provide a range of reserve estimates within two or three weeks.

The discovery was made near Lundin's Edvard Grieg field, as well as the Johan Sverdrup field that two years ago became one of the five largest discoveries on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, and the country's largest find since the mid-eighties.

Johan Sverdrup holds between 1.7 and 3.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), according to estimates due to be updated in the near future.

"The pressure data indicates that the petroleum system in Luno II is different to that seen in the Edvard Grieg and Johan Sverdrup fields," the company said.

Lundin has a 40 percent stake in the Luno II well, with Norway's Statoil and Britain's Premier Oil holding 30 percent each.

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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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