Image credit: ogj.com
In the real world, demand for oil continues unabated. Note for climate squealers: ‘At the production stage, each barrel has a carbon footprint 25 times lower than the global average’. Whoopee!
Under yellow metal legs stretching beneath the sea, billions of dollars lie buried.
As the world tries hard to halt global warming, mutters Phys.org, a huge oil field breathes new life into Norway’s oil sector.
“Massive!”, exclaims a delighted Arne Sigve Nylund, the head of energy giant Equinor’s Norway operations.
“At its peak, it will represent approximately 25-30 percent of the total oil production from the Norwegian continental shelf,” he says as he takes reporters on a tour of the Johan Sverdrup oil field, hardhat firmly secured on his head.
Fifty years after the Scandinavian country first struck black gold, the field holds the promise of another half-century of oil business, despite growing opposition to fossil fuels.
That is music to the ears of Norway’s oil sector, hit by a continuous decline in production since the turn of the millennium and a drop in oil prices since 2014.
Johan Sverdrup—named after a Norwegian prime minister—means welcome jobs and investments.
According to Equinor, which is 67-percent owned by the Norwegian state, the field represents a windfall of 1.43 trillion kroner ($157 billion, 141 billion euros), with more than 900 billion due to end up in state coffers.
A windfall that almost ended up in other hands: test drilling in the 1970s by French oil company Elf, now a part of Total, failed to find the oil field by just a few metres.
Norway’s King Harald will formally inaugurate the field in January, but production began back in early October and 350,000 barrels are already being pumped up each day.
That “probably” makes it the most productive field in western Europe, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.
When it hits its peak in late 2022, the field—which also includes companies Lundin of Sweden, Aker BP of Norway, and France’s Total—is expected to produce almost double that, or 660,000 barrels per day.
Full report here.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
December 12, 2019 at 06:03AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 