In connection with the North Sea Awards 2001, 12 companies will receive offers to explore for and produce petroleum in the North Sea. The companies will in total be offered petroleum production licences in 10 blocks or parts of blocks.

The North Sea Awards 2001 is important for the long-term resource management on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. As there will be spare capacity in existing fields in the North Sea in the coming years, making new discoveries and maturing them for development is necessary to ensure utilisation of this capacity. This will even out the activity level, says Einar Steensnæs, Minister of Petroleum and Energy.

North Sea Awards 2001 was announced in September 2001, with a deadline for the submission of applications on the 7 >December 2001.

10 new petroleum production licences will be offered.

The following companies will be offered operatorship (number in parenthesis):

Statoil (2), Norsk Hydro (2), Phillips (2), RWE-DEA (2), Pelican/DONG (1) og Kerr-McGee (1).

The following companies will receive offers for participation (number in parenthesis): TotalFinaElf (2), Dong (2), Svenska Petroleum (1), Norsk Hydro (1), Statoil (1), Paladin (1), RWE-DEA (1), Enterprise (1), Norsk Agip (1).

See map ( Pdf format)
North Sea Awards 2001