OSLO- Norway on Thursday launched a consultation on a 2021 licensing round in mature areas in which it offered 84 new blocks for petroleum exploration, including 70 in the Arctic Barents Sea.
The maps attached to a statement by the oil and energy ministry showed new blocks offered south east off Bear Island, roughly half way between the Arctic Svalbard Archipelago and mainland Europe.
Four new blocks are offered in the North Sea and 10 in the Norwegian Sea, the ministry added in a statement.
"Predictable access to (a) new exploration area is crucial for further development of the petroleum industry. It enables us to maintain activity and value creation on the Norwegian shelf and in the supplier industry," Norway's Oil and Energy Minister Tina Bru said in a statement.
The so-called predefined areas (APA) licensing rounds were introduced in 2003 to facilitate exploration in the most geologically known parts of the Norwegian continental shelf.
The government, however, has increasingly used those to expand exploration acreage in the Barents Sea, which has only two producing fields.
Norway plans to announce the awards in January 2022, the ministry said.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Gwladys Fouche and Victoria Klesty) ((nerijus.adomaitis@thomsonreuters.com; +47 9027 6699; Reuters Messaging: nerijus.adomaitis.thomsonreuters@reuters.net))
