Norway Has Oil Reserves For 50 Years Production

The world's third biggest exporter of oil, Norway, forecast yesterday that it would pump oil for another five decades estimated that three fifths of recoverable oil reserves were still in place.

The Norwegian Oil and Energy Ministry also spelled out in a White Paper that it would remain independent, ruling out any formal agreements with OPEC or other oil producers on output.

”More than sixty percent of the total oil resources remains to be produced and could provide a basis for another fifty years of oil production,” Oil and Energy Minister Einar Steensnaes said in a statement.

”It is not an option to enter agreements or any other forms of cooperation with other producing countries regarding oil regulations,” the White Paper said, but kept the door open to possible future regulations if the market called for it.

Oslo agreed to hold back one hundred and fifty thousand barrels per day to choke production to an average 3.02 million bpd for the first six months of this year to help OPEC to underpin prices. It will suspend the cuts from July 1st however.

Norway said it would aim to increase the oilfield recovery factor, the proportion of the total reserves to be extracted, to fifty percent from a current forty four percent, representing a gross production value of about 500 billion crowns ($66.68 billion).

For gas, which is seen gradually replacing oil in the long term as Norway's main source of revenues, the White Paper said Norwegian producers had committed to sell more than eighty billion cubic metres per annum from the year 2008.

It said it had no plans to change its stake in the Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil, in which it owns eighty two percent, or in the State's Direct Financial Interest (SDFI), also called Petoro.

©

&to=http://www.opec.org/' target=_blank>OPEC