Norway Bars Oil Drilling Off Lofoten Islands

OSLO, Norway, December 19, 2003 (ENS) - The Norwegian government has decided against permitting exploration for oil around the Lofoten Islands for the next two years. The area is inhabited by the world's largest cod and herring populations, sperm whales and killer whales, and some of the largest sea bird colonies in Europe.

As late as November the center-right government was considering granting oil concessions to companies like Shell, Statoil, and Norske Hydro to drill for oil around the Lofoten Islands in arctic Norway. The companies claimed there could be as much as $US1 billion worth of oil beneath Lofoten seas.

Norwegian Oil and Energy Minister Einar Steensnaes (Photo courtesy Government of Norway)

But at the same time, Steensnaes announced that Norway's sector of the Barents Sea is to be reopened for petroleum operations.

"It's very positive for us that the Barents Sea is being reopened after a three-year pause," said Statoil's Tor Fjæran, senior vice president for exploration operations in the Exploration and Production Norway business area.

Fjæran says that "zero harm, clean seas and coexistence with other industries will be guiding principles for petroleum activities in these waters."

Statoil regards the Lofotens' waters as "highly interesting," said Fjæran, but opening them has been "difficult this time round."

Statoil's aim is to be a "prime mover in ensuring that new oil operations in northern areas are pursued without causing environmental damage," he said.

Since the 1970s, the oil resources in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea have provided wealth for the Norwegian people. The oil fortune has given Norwegians one of the highest living standards in the world. But fisheries are also valuable to Norway, and the Lofotens decision reflects the government's desire to protect those fisheries.

The Lofotens decision is a turning point in the history of oil development in sensitive areas said the conservation organization WWF, which has been lobbying against the oil exploration.

Fishing village in the Lofoten islands. (Photo courtesy Jon Rowe)

WWF expects that in 2005 the government will fully protect the Lofoten Islands on completion of its Barents Sea Management Plan.

The Barents Sea is one of Europe’s last large, clean and relatively undisturbed ecosystems, the conservation group said in a new report that maps the sea's most ecologically valuable areas. The oil industry intends to drill in some of these areas.

Among its most spectacular features are the world’s highest density of seabirds, some of the world’s richest fisheries, and diverse and rare communities of marine mammals, WWF said in "The Barents Sea Ecoregion Biodiversity Assessment."

Director of WWF’s Arctic Program Samantha Smith said, "This is a landmark decision which oil companies planning to explore in the Arctic should take note of. Some things are more important than short term oil and gas profits."

She compared Norway's Lofotens' decision to the battle between conservationists and oil companies in the United States over oil exploration in the fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "It is no longer acceptable to explore for oil in biologically vulnerable and valuable areas. We have seen this happen in the U.S. over the Arctic Refuge and now we have seen it in Lofoten," Smith said.

But the governments decision to allow exploratory drilling in the Goliath field in the Barents Sea off northern Norway, "surprised and disappointed" the WWF. The area is close to important seabird colonies and fish spawning grounds.

"WWF will not allow full scale development to take place in Goliath without a major battle," Smith said.