NORWAY’S STATOIL HAS produced plans for the most costly offshore energy project in European history, the development of the massive Johan Sversrup field in the North Sea.

The energy group, which only last week said it was cutting back on investments because of the plunge in global oil prices, today announced it would spend up to 220 billion Norwegian kroner (€25.4 billion) developing the project.

If Norway’s government gives the plan the go ahead, the company expects to start pumping oil by late 2019 from what was the biggest find in the region since the 1980s.

Statoil ‘s Øivind Reinertsen said the Johan Sversrup project would “create ripple effects for the whole society”.

Norway has easily the biggest oil and natural gas reserves in Europe and it exports over 80% of all its energy production, which is worth nearly a quarter of the country’s GDP.

Statoil said it expected to reap up to 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent from the new project, which means it will make a big profit for the company even if world oil prices keep hovering at their recent, six-year lows.

Statoil Statoil

It recently posted a big quarterly loss of 8.9 billion kroner (€1 billion), which it blamed on sagging oil prices and forced write-offs on its international business.

That came despite its production going up 8% to 2.1 million barrels per day.

- with AP

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