Sweden's Lundin Petroleum Strikes Oil With Its First Exploration Well Off Norway

Sweden's Lundin Petroleum AB on Thursday said it made a significant oil discovery with the first well it drilled as an offshore operator off Norway.

The company estimated the size of the reservoir at between 65 million and 190 million barrels of recoverable oil, but that more testing and wells were needed to determine a more precise estimate. It said there could be more oil in separate reservoirs at the find.

"We are very excited to have made an oil discovery with our first operated exploration well in Norway. Our initial analysis is that the field will be commercial and has the potential to be a significant development on the Norwegian Continental Shelf," said Ashley Heppenstall, Ludin's president and chief executive.

The find was made about 155 miles northwest of the southwestern Norway port of Stavanger. In a separate news release, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said the discovery was made about 17 miles east of a discovery called Gudrun, made by the state-controlled StatoilHydro ASA oil company.

Along with a 50 percent stake, Lundin was awarded the right to operate the exploration block in 2004 as part of a Norwegian government drive to encourage the development of new finds near existing offshore fields.

Linking new finds to already producing fields can significantly cut development costs, and help shore up Norway's slowly dwindling offshore oil production.

In addition to Lundin, the small Norwegian oil company Revus Energy ASA has a 30 percent stake and RWE-DEA Norge AS, a Norwegian subsidiary of Germany's RWE AG, has 20 percent.

www.lundin-petroleum.com