At the beginning of July, the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE) took its decision for the apportionment of the ownership interests in the Johan Sverdrup oil field in the North Sea.

Image: Statoil

The apportionment was based on an assessment carried out by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD). Based on the decision, the ownership interests in the field was divided as follows:

- Statoil:           40.0267 %
- Lundin:          22.6000 %
- Petoro:          17.3600 %
- Det norske:   11.5733 %
- Maersk Oil:     8.4400 %

When the decision of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy was announced, Karl Johnny Hersvik, the Chief Executive Officer of Det norske oljeselskap commented:

“We will now study the decision thoroughly before we decide how to proceed”

Recently it became known that the Norwegian oil company has decided to fight Oslo’s split up of the huge Johan Sverdrup oilfield, which is the Europe’s largest offshore project with up to 3bn barrels of oil equivalent.

“For Det norske, it is a decisive principle that the ownership interests in Johan Sverdrup are to be distributed according to a combination of volume and value. We do not see this principle reflected in the Ministry of Petroleum & Energy decision on the unitisation split,” Hersvik, said in a statement.

Det norske has been given just 11.57% of the field and it is not excluded as an option, the company to take a legal action in order to obtain a higher share in the exploitation of the Johan Sverdrup oilfield.