Arctic Oil Promise Keeps Norway's Disappointed Wildcatters Going

Aker BP ASA, another Norway-based producer, will drill at least two exploration wells in the Barents next year, and Lundin is planning one more wildcat that will start late in 2017 and run into 2018, according to presentation material. It hasn’t published exploration plans for next year yet.

“Lundin has long-term ambitions in the Barents Sea,” Halvor Jahre, the exploration chief of its Norwegian unit, said in an email.

Even so, 2018 will be “pretty pivotal” for exploration in the Barents, WoodMac’s Boroujerdi predicted. Another year like this one would make it hard for companies to commit to a fresh wave of wells in 2019 and 2020, resulting in a pause like the one Statoil had from 2014 to 2017 after a disappointing campaign, he said. 

“The fundamentals are in place for an attractive frontier area to explore,” Boroujerdi said. “But that type of fundamentals may not stack up in a board room when people are making the decisions. If you’re not discovering anything, it’s quite difficult to commit.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Mikael Holter in Oslo at mholter2@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net Alex Devine.