Norway’s oil major Statoil plans to significantly step up its exploration drilling for oil and gas on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in 2018, a spokesman told Reuters on Friday. “We are looking at drilling 25 to 30 wells in Norway in 2018. That’s an early ambition we have and it depends on some approvals,” said Statoil’s spokesman. These plans include drilling at licenses operated by Statoil and licenses operated by other companies in which Statoil holds stakes. For 2017, Statoil planned to drill 30 exploration wells worldwide as operator and partner, expecting to complete 16-18 exploration wells on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), the company said at the beginning of this year. That was higher than the 14 wells it completed offshore Norway as operator and partner in 2016. Cost cuts and changed market conditions had allowed Statoil to boost its global exploration drilling plans for this year by […]