Big oil is watching Spits­ber­gen

The oil and gas indus­try will focus rese­arch acti­vi­ties on on-shore are­as of Spits­ber­gen. Even though oil and gas pro­duc­tion is unli­kely on the islands not only for fra­gi­le legal rea­sons, but also due to more solid geo­lo­gi­cal cir­cum­s­tan­ces: here it is easy to stu­dy what is hid­den under the sea floor fur­ther south in the Bar­ents Sea. The so-cal­led Bar­ents Shelf is belie­ved to have signi­fi­cant poten­ti­al for hydro­car­bon pro­duc­tion.

Main­ly of inte­rest are Tri­as­sic and Juras­sic sedi­ments that are rich in orga­nic mate­ri­al and wide­ly spread in cen­tral and sou­the­as­tern parts of Sval­bard. Equi­va­lents of the­se rocks near the Nor­we­gi­an coast have alrea­dy tur­ned out to be pro­duc­ti­ve. Several oil com­pa­nies have alrea­dy announ­ced their inte­rest to con­duct geo­lo­gi­cal excur­si­ons to the­se parts of Sval­bard.

Source: Net­ta­vi­sen for Geo­mil­jøet

By the way, my new book is in print and it can now be orde­red 🙂 it is a pho­to book with the tit­le “Nor­we­gens ark­ti­scher Nor­den (1): Spitz­ber­gen – vom Polar­licht bis zur Mit­ter­nachts­son­ne”, with Ger­man text Click here for fur­ther details!