BP's U.S. spill may lead to delays off Norway

STAVANGER, Norway (Reuters) - BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will probably lead to a delay in the awarding of licenses offshore Norway, the chief of the country's Petroleum Directorate said on Friday.

Bente Nyland, head of the government agency tasked with managing the country's offshore oil and gas resources (NPD) also told Reuters in an interview that exploration drilling offshore Norway would drop in 2011, compared with 2010.

Asked whether the accident would delay the awarding of new licenses in Norway, Nyland said: "Probably yes. I think it will be more difficult to talk about new acreage ... especially in deep water. And there could be a different view on existing production."

She said that exploration in Norway would decline in 2011 compared to 2010 and that oil firms were on track to do the drilling of 40-50 exploration wells this year.

"Exploration in the last two years was exceptionally high," Nyland said. "It will go down (in 2011), mainly because Statoil had a high exploration program (this year). They have less wells committed in 2011."

The Norwegian state-owned firm is the main operator in the seas off the Nordic country. Nyland said most of the exploration work in 2011 will be conducted in the North and Norwegian Seas.

"GHOST" IN DEBATE

Despite good monitoring systems and extensive knowledge of Norway's continental shelf, she said, accidents can always happen.

"It will be like a ghost in the debate (on petroleum activities)," she said of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. "It is a good argument for those who don't want to have any more."

She added: "The accident was an eye-opener. Maybe it had been too long without a serious accident and (people) were getting sleepy."

The Nordic country is Europe's second-largest energy exporter but oil output peaked in 2001. One of the directorate's top goals is to boost recovery rates from maturing fields.

In recent years Norway has sought to attract small- and medium-sized firms to conduct oil and gas activities. The approach is seen as an efficient way to find smaller fields as big players priorities large, so-called "elephant," fields.

Nyland said firms of modest size would increasingly carry out production work as well as exploration.

"There will probably be more medium-sized companies doing production on the shelf in the future," Nyland said. "Some assets are (already) in the planning phase."

UPPING INVESTMENTS

In January Nyland said the industry was reluctant to increase investments to boost recovery rates as it thought it was living in an era of low oil prices.

She said on Friday that oil firms were gradually coming around to the directorate's view and were upping investments, partly as a result of the Deepwater Horizon accident.

"There has been a slight change," she said. "We see there is movement when we see the firms' plans for the fields."

Producers realize they have to focus more sharply on their existing production as new acreage worldwide is hard to come by, she said.

"It is not only in Norway, it is also in other places: it is difficult to get access to acreage and new producing assets."

(Editing by Anthony Barker)