Equinor and Partners Make Commercial Oil Discovery in North Sea

By Dominic Chopping

Equinor and its partners have made a commercial oil discovery in the North Sea.

The Norwegian energy major said Monday that according to preliminary estimates the discovery holds between 25 million and 89 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalents.

The new discovery will be connected to existing subsea facilities and produced through the Snorre A platform.

Equinor said that Norwegian oil and gas are crucial for European energy security, with Norway supplying 20% of Europe's oil demand and 30% of its gas demand.

"Production from existing fields is declining," it said. "It is therefore important to increase exploration activity and accelerate the development of new discoveries that can be tied back to existing fields."

Equinor has an ambition to maintain approximately the same production level in 2035 as in 2020, corresponding to around 1.2 million barrels of oil and gas a day from the Norwegian continental shelf. About 70% of this will come from new wells and developments, and it plans to drill 250 exploration wells, most of them near existing fields.

The discovery was made in production license 057. Partners in the license include Equinor as operator with a 31% stake, Petoro with 30%, Harbour Energy with 24.5%, Inpex Idemitsu with 9.6%, and Var Energi with 4.9%.

Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 02, 2026 03:48 ET (08:48 GMT)