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