Norway’s Johan Sverdrup oil field is ramping up production to levels not seen in years in the North Sea. It is one of many changes underway in an industry characterized by a profusion of new corporate players, more diverse crude quality and an expanding global customer base. The North Sea’s leading producer nations, Norway and the UK, differ in the structure of their industries and their remaining resources, but have both found ways to boost their prospects and defy the more pessimistic predictions made when oil prices collapsed in 2014. Since the downturn, Norway’s state-controlled Equinor has focused on getting the 2.7 billion barrel Johan Sverdrup field on stream efficiently, with low costs and ahead of schedule, as well as environmental innovations such as powering the facility from the national grid, with a major hydropower component. Johan Sverdrup’s rapid rise — production reached 200,000 b/d three weeks […]