Norway Oil Drillers Hit Record Dry Spell as Reserves Wane

[phantom power]

Statoil ASA (STL) and Eni SpA (ENI) are among companies with plans to drill a record number of wells in Norway’s far north this year to help the world’s second-largest gas exporter to sustain output. So far, they’ve struck out.

All four wells drilled in the Barents and Norwegian seas this year have failed to find oil or gas, adding to two dry wells in the North Sea, the biggest number of failures to start the year since the country’s oil era began in 1966, according to government data. Oil companies plan as many as 22 wells in Norway’s Arctic this year, up from 12 last year.

Helge Lund, chief executive officer at state-controlled oil company Statoil, says the industry has been unable to “crack the code” of the Barents Sea, off Scandinavia’s northern tip. Norway, where energy production makes up about 25 percent of the economy, is pushing into the Arctic and relying more on gas because oil output has slumped 50 percent since peaking in 2000.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-03/norway-drillers-hit-worst-dry-spell-in-decades-as-reserves-wane.html

[hatrack]

1. Gosh, no one could have predicted this!

And this is with some of the best oil & gas professionals and the best technology on the planet.

[phantom power]

2. Team Tool Monkey is getting some push-back

[txlibdem]

3. Wasn't it just a few months ago that the pundit-o-sphere were poo-pooing peak oil?

That's what I thought.