Germany’s Wintershall was awarded eight new exploration licenses by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in the current licensing round APA 2014.

Wintershall will be operator on three of the eight licenses. Seven of the new licenses are located in the North Sea and one operated license in the Barents Sea.

The APA 2014 licensing round covers an overall surface area of 109,205sq km and was extended by six blocks in the Norwegian Sea and three blocks in the Barents Sea compared to the 2013 licensing round.

New Wintershall licenses in the North Sea include:

• PL788 (50%) (Operator)
• PL678 C (35%) (Operator)
• PL777 (20%)
• PL778 (20%)
• PL776 (20%)
• PL373 BS (20%)
• PL787 (30%)

In the Barents Sea, Wintershall is the operator of PL804 with 40% interest.

According to Wintershall, the BASF subsidiary holds about 50 licenses on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, and is operator of more than half of these, making it one of the largest license holders in Norway. This figure does not include the new licenses, which will be officially awarded during the course of the year.

A total of 47 companies submitted for some 54 new production licenses distributed over the North Sea (34), Norwegian Sea (16) and the Barents Sea (4).

“Wintershall has been awarded licenses in very promising areas on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Our exploration team made strong applications and it is pleasing that the Ministry has once again shown confidence in our ability to explore for hydrocarbons,” says Bernd Schrimpf, Wintershall Norge managing director. “It is critical that we continue to replenish our license portfolio so that we can continue to operate in this way.”

Source: www.oedigital.com

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