Increasing its estimates for undiscovered recoverable oil and gas resources offshore Norway, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) says its forecasts are now up by 16% from 16.17 billion barrels of oil equivalent to 18.74 billion boe.

The revised forecast now includes undiscovered petroleum resources in a south east region of the Barents Sea, around the volcanic island of Jan Mayen, previously unmapped and unaccounted for in NPD’s biennial resources report.

Patrick Phelan, managing director of Aquaterra Energy, said: “Norway is one of the top 10 oil producing countries in the world and the second largest gas supplier to Europe.  Large discoveries in mature and frontier areas have boosted the industry and our team is now working in the region to support this growth through provision of specialist offshore engineering services.”

The Johan Sverdrup field in mature areas offshore Norway, one of the biggest Norwegian discoveries ever, is currently believed to contain 3.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil.  More exploration drilling is taking place at the Johan Castberg field in PL532 in the Barents Sea, which consists of the Skrugard discovery from 2011 and Havis which was discovered in 2012.