Norway urges energy giants to ramp up search for Arctic oil and gas

The Norwegian government is calling on energy giants to ramp up oil and gas exploration projects in remote regions like the Arctic Barents Sea, defying a sense of palpable frustration among climate campaigners as the Nordic country seeks to shore up its position as Europe’s largest gas supplier.

The rethink in strategy comes as Norway strives to keep up with growing demand for its energy exports in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Norway last year overtook Russia as Europe’s biggest natural gas supplier and says it is now seeking to maintain Europe’s energy security by exploring the Barents Sea for further resources.

Speaking in the town of Hammerfest late last month, Norway’s Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Aasland reportedly said that the industry should “leave no stone unturned” in their pursuit for fresh hydrocarbon discoveries in the Barents Sea.

Aasland even described this policy as the oil and gas industry’s “social responsibility,” according to Bloomberg, saying undiscovered resources could help to maintain the country’s future production levels.

Norway oil and gas giant Equinor and Vår Energi, one of the country’s largest exploration and production companies, confirmed to CNBC that the minister recently issued this call.

A spokesperson for Norway’s petroleum and energy ministry, meanwhile, said that the message to energy giants was “to explore all economic oil and gas resources within the available areas, including in the Barents Sea.”

Norway has pumped oil and gas from its continental shelf, a relatively shallow section of seabed off its coast, for more than 50 years and it currently has several oil and gas fields either in production or under development.

It is estimated that roughly two-thirds of the country’s undiscovered oil resources lies off the country’s northern coast in the Arctic’s Barents Sea. And yet, the desire among energy companies to explore the Barents Sea for oil and gas has been relatively subdued in recent years, in part due to high costs and limited opportunities to export gas to markets.

At the start of the year, however, Norway said it planned to offer energy firms a record number of oil and gas exploration blocks in the Arctic.

Environmental campaigners at Friends of the Earth Norway, WWF-Norway and Greenpeace Norway have described the country’s lobbying for continued oil and gas expansion as “embarrassing,” “extremely reckless” and “a middle finger to the Paris Agreement.”

“Oil drilling in the Arctic is like pouring gasoline on a fire,” Frode Pleym, head of Greenpeace Norway, told CNBC via email.

“Both Norway and the oil corporations need to stop cynically exploiting Russia’s war in Ukraine,” Pleym said. “The aggressive and greedy oil…