Arctic Oil Promise Keeps Norway's Disappointed Wildcatters Going
- Record Barents campaign yields just one viable crude discovery
- Survival of country’s glittering oil age depends on new finds
An offshore rig in the Barents Sea off the coast of Norway.
Photographer: Mikhael Holter/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
It’s been a bad year for oil explorers in Norway’s Arctic: a record campaign in the Barents Sea yielded little; the most exciting well in years proved to be a flop; and Norwegians grew increasingly skeptical about the industry that made them rich.
But companies led by Norway’s state-controlled Statoil ASA and Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum AB aren’t about to give up.