Nick Snow
OGJ Washington Editor
WASHINGTON, DC, July 2 -- More than 76 billion boe may be technically recoverable on the Barents Sea shelf, the US Geological Survey said.
The mean estimate of undiscovered, conventional, technically recoverable petroleum resources in four geologic provinces on the Barents shelf included 11 billion bbl of oil, 380 tcf of natural gas, and 2 billion bbl of natural gas liquids.
The US Department of the Interior agency completed the assessment in 2008 as part of its Circum-Arctic Oil and Gas Resource Appraisal. The shelf lies entirely north of the Arctic Circle covering 1.76 million sq km off northern Norway and Russia. Most lies in less than 500 m of water.
“This area shares important characteristics with many Arctic basins, such as sparse data, high geologic uncertainty, substantial petroleum-resource potential, and technical barriers that impede exploration and development,” the USGS report said.
Most of the undiscovered petroleum appears to be in the East Barents basin province, it indicated.
Contact Nick Snow at nicks@pennwell.com.
