U.S. oil companies: Norwegian shelf is second-rated
U.S. oil companies are not impressed with the blocks they are given in the Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea, Wikileaks documents from the U.S. embassy in Oslo show.
According to documents studied by the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, the Americans did not believe the Norwegian government would secure equal terms of competition for the companies when awarding blocks and feared that Statoil would get most of the licenses.
The U.S. embassy in Oslo was relieved when the American oil companies were pleased with the number of awarded blocks, Aftenposten writes. But the American oil companies believed the blocks in the Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea were second-rated and that without an opening of new blocks outside Lofoten, U.S. companies would soon leave Norway.
– Norwegian authorities must realize that the Norwegian continental shelf no longer is a dream field, Kevin M. Johnson at the embassy wrote, according to one of the Wikileaks documents.
