Norway Awards 38 Offshore Oil, Gas Blocks To 42 Companies

LONDON (Dow Jones)--The Norwegian ministry of petroleum and energy said Tuesday it has awarded 38 new oil and gas production licenses in the North Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea to 42 companies.

Most of the licenses are in mature areas where oil and gas has already been explored for or produced, the ministry said in a statement. "The main challenge in mature areas is that the expected sizes of discoveries are declining," it said.

"Small discoveries can often not justify a standalone development, but can be profitable with a tie-in. It is therefore important to discover and develop resources in these areas before existing infrastructure in connection to other fields is shut down," it said.

Operators of the new license blocks include Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN), Centrica PLC (CNA.LN), ConocoPhillips (COP), Dana Petroleum PLC (DNX.LN), E.ON AG (EOAN.XE), GDF Suez SA (GSZ.FR), Marathon Corp. (MRO), Nexen Corp. (NXY), OMV AG (OMV.VI), Repsol SA (REP) and Statoil ASA (STO).

Source:online.wsj.com/