Russia and Norway tackle Arctic sea border issue

By Wojciech Moskwa

OSLO (Reuters) - Russia and Norway meet on Monday and Tuesday in the hope of making progress in a decades-old dispute over their maritime border in the Barents Sea -- a part of the Arctic that could hold large oil and gas reserves.

Officials have said the Barents Sea could become an important new source of petroleum to supply Europe, but development has been hindered by the dispute.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying: "I am convinced that we will make progress in the negotiations" by the website BarentsObserver.com ahead of the talks with his Norwegian counterpart, Jonas Gahr Stoere.

But Norway said it had seen no sign of progress.

"Of course when ministers meet in that part of the world it (the border dispute) is a natural part of the agenda," a spokeswoman for the Norwegian foreign ministry said. "It is difficult to predict how the negotiations will proceed."

A year ago Russia and Norway agreed to set the border for a small swathe of sea through one fjord, raising hopes of progress on the entire area, which is about half the size of Germany.

But a senior official from Norway's Petroleum and Energy Ministry told an oil industry forum later in 2007 that an overall accord was "as near as ever".

Norway's StatoilHydro has the only offshore petroleum development in the Barents Sea -- its Snoehvit field and liquefied natural gas plant.

Russia's Barents Sea waters hold the undeveloped Shtokman gas field, one of the world's biggest, which StatoilHydro is to help the Russian gas giant Gazprom to develop.

Stoere's talks with Lavrov will also deal with ways to ease cross-border travel for people on both sides of the frontier.

"We approve 98 percent of the applications from the Russian side and this takes a lot of time," Stoere told the Norwegian news agency NTB. "What we are now looking at is that people living near the border can be furnished with a document that would make it easier to travel back and forth."

After visiting the Norwegian town of Kirkenes on Monday, the ministers will go to Murmansk in northwest Russia on Tuesday.

(Additional reporting by John Acher; Editing by Kevin Liffey)