Statoil and "The Red Queen'

Regular readers of the blog remember the "Red Queen" commentary some time ago. I always thought the writer was either disingenuous or did not under the oil industry.

This story sort of proves the point. Rigzone is reporting:

Norway needs to make a new giant oil and gas discovery every other year for the next decade to offset falling production, Statoil ASA's Chief Financial Officer Torgrim Reitan told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday.

"We expect the production on the Norwegian shelf to go on pretty well until 2020 or 2025, and after that it will fall," Mr. Reitan said in an interview at the sidelines of a parliament hearing on Norway's public financing needs up to 2060.

Norwegian group Statoil and other oil companies operating on the Norwegian continental shelf are key contributors to Norway's massive wealth. The country's oil and gas revenues were 372 billion kroner ($64 billion) in 2011. It has a $700 billion oil fund and no net debt.

But the high oil sector activity is likely to fade in the coming decade, Statoil warned, unless new acreage is awarded and new discoveries made. Norway's crude oil output has halved since 2000, although somewhat offset by higher gas output. Statoil expects the production fall to accelerate sometime after 2020.

One word: Hess. 

Also note: the exchange came at a hearing concerning public financing needs up to 2060. Sounds like Norway is not worried about global warming destroying the earth.