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Arctic Johan Castberg concept illustration. .Graphic: Statoil communities along the Arctic littoral He noted that, “from an engineering systems. Those in front of the Canadian [part of the sea, close to shore] want perspective the issue is clearly the ice, Mackenzie, Russian Lena and other investment and development. the temperature, and to a lesser degree, rivers are well known. There are also the “It is widely acknowledged that the the lack of daylight for half of the year. prolifc West Siberian and Timan Pechora

Arctic is a sensitive natural environment, To access these great, partially ice-bound basins, which plunge northwards below upon which some communities depend prospects will not be easy, cheap or fast.” the icy Kara Sea.

for subsistence and cultural heritage. The ice-bound continental shelf and The latter basins, together with the

Therefore, an open and transparent dia- slope of the Arctic remains largely fact that 60% of the Arctic continental logue is required, based on good science unexplored, yet 10% (19) of the world’s margin is in Russian waters, explains the and knowledge transfer, between all rivers discharge into the Arctic and some dominance of stakeholders.” have formed huge Tertiary delta

Okhotsk Sea the resource base, but all the other

Chukchi Sea things—environment, technology, market and infrastructure, license terms, stakeholders, and having

Beaufort Sea enough money—have to be in place before we get to the top of the pyramid in order to go out and explore.”

He stressed that the focus in

West Greenland the Arctic has been on environ-

Russian Barents mental protection. “People say we

Sea don’t know about oil spills in ice.

Actually, that’s not true. We’ve studied it for a long, long time.

Norwegian Barents

There are research consortia who

Sea

Newfoundland

Statoil Arctic presence – signifcant drilling campaigns in Barents Sea and

Faroe Islands

Grand Banks. . All images: Statoil

Maximum ice cover 2011-2012

Statoil positions oedigital.com December 2013 | OE 65 064_OE1213_Arctic4_new.indd 65 11/22/13 5:37 PM