Norway's PM Rejects Call To Drill Off Environmentally Sensitive Lofoten Islands - Bloomberg

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg rejected a call by the nation’s oil minister to start drilling in restricted areas off the environmentally sensitive Lofoten islands this year.

“I absolutely can’t imagine that there will be oil activity in the opened areas of Nordland VI this fall,” Prime Minister Stoltenberg said today in a debate at the Oslo-based parliament, referring to an exploration area that has been put on hold for the past decade.

Petroleum and Energy Minister Ola Borten Moe said in November that he favored opening up that area as soon as this year, while he also advocated keeping a ban on other disputed blocks off the Lofoten and Vesteraalen islands until at least 2017. Stoltenberg’s coalition is divided over whether to open the restricted areas, which according to industry group KonKraft could hold as much as 3.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

Pressure is increasing to open the area for exploration as crude output in western Europe’s largest oil producer has fallen by about 50 percent in the past decade.

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-06/norway-s-premier-rejects-oil-minister-call-for-lofoten-drilling.html