Three of Norway’s largest oil and gas producers are joining forces to hunt for the next generation of major discoveries on the Norwegian Continental Shelf as the industry looks to offset an expected long-term decline in production.
Equinor, Aker BP and Vår Energi said Monday that they will pool exploration expertise, seismic and subsurface data, technology and drilling capacity to pursue some of the largest remaining prospects offshore Norway.
Over the next four to five years, the companies intend to mature and evaluate roughly 20 to 25 exploration opportunities, with a target of drilling around five high-impact wells each year.
The collaboration marks a shift toward sharing the cost and geological risk associated with larger, more complex prospects. While Norwegian operators have continued to make discoveries in recent years, much of that success has come from smaller deposits located close to existing platforms and pipelines.
Those discoveries remain commercially important because they can often be developed as relatively low-cost subsea tiebacks. But Equinor and its partners argue that Norway will also need larger finds capable of underpinning entirely new production hubs if it is to maintain output well into the next decade.
Some of the largest remaining prospects on the Norwegian shelf carry greater geological uncertainty and require more capital, making it increasingly difficult for individual companies to build partnerships around them. Combining their portfolios could allow the three producers to test more prospects while spreading the financial exposure.
The initiative comes as Norway seeks to extend the productive life of its mature offshore oil and gas sector. The country has become an increasingly important supplier of natural gas to Europe following the sharp reduction in Russian pipeline deliveries after 2022.
Equinor said production from the Norwegian Continental Shelf is expected to decline after 2035 unless sufficient new resources are discovered and brought into production. Major new developments would also provide additional work for Norway’s offshore services and engineering sector as activity at older fields gradually falls.
For Equinor, Aker BP and Vår Energi, the partnership does not replace near-field exploration around existing infrastructure. Instead, it adds a coordinated effort focused specifically on higher-impact prospects that could materially expand Norway’s future resource base.
The companies have not identified the individual prospects included in the program or disclosed expected exploration spending.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
Equinor and Aker BP Make New North Sea Gas Discovery
By Tsvetana Paraskova - Aug 24, 2026
Norwegian oil and gas firms Equinor and Aker BP have made a gas and condensate discovery close to the operating Balder field in the North Sea, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate, the regulator of the industry in Norway, said on Monday.
Equinor and Aker BP had an exploration well drilled in a production license 16 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of the Balder field and 205 kilometers (127 miles) west of Stavanger, a major oil services hub in Norway.
Preliminary estimates indicate the size of the discovery is between 0.1 and 2.1 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalent, the Norwegian regulator said.
The licensees are now reviewing the result from the well and the other wells previously drilled in the license to consider further exploration potential in the production license.
Norway, Equinor, Aker BP, and other producers in the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) continue to pursue drilling and development in areas close to existing infrastructure to fast-track potential new projects by tie-backs to operational platforms.
The country and its producers are vying to maintain a high level of oil and gas production and exports for at least another decade, to boost Norway’s economy and deliver oil and gas to Europe.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine cut off most Russian gas to Europe, Norway has become the single biggest supplier of gas to the EU and the UK.
Equinor, in particular, plans to drill 20 to 30 exploration wells every year as it aims to sustain current production levels all the way through 2035, the company said in January when it was awarded 35 new production licenses on the Norwegian continental shelf in Norway’s tender for mature exploration areas.
Norway produces more than 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, with oil and gas nearly equally divided at 2 million boepd each.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
