Norway and U.K. Strengthen Energy Ties

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- Norway and the U.K. have signed a landmark agreement to secure future energy supplies and develop more renewable energy projects.

The Norway-UK Energy Partnership for Sustainable Growth was signed by Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his U.K. counterpart, Prime Minister David Cameron. It sets out a wide-ranging activities covering renewable energy investment, electricity interconnection, carbon capture and storage (CCS), oil and gas extraction, long term gas supply and the development of international climate change policy.

Norway is already a key supplier of oil and gas to the UK, supplying 42% of its imported gas and around 62% of its oil imports in 2011.

The deal was accompanied by announcements from a wide range of U.K. and Norwegian oil, gas and energy companies. Some of the key announcements included:

• The Forewind Consortium, which includes Norwegian companies Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO) (Stavanger, Norway) and Statkraft AS (Oslo), has confirmed its intention to develop the 9,000 megawatt (MW) Dogger Bank offshore wind project off the East coast of Yorkshire, which could require up to £30 billion ($46.6 billion) of investment. Dogger Bank could provide more than 10% of the U.K.'s electricity needs.

• Statoil and Statkraft are investing around £1 billion ($1.55 billion) in developing the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm off the coast of Norfolk, which is already generating power and will be completed later this year.

• Norwegian global oil services firm Aker Solutions (OTC:AKKVF) (Oslo) will create 1,300 skilled jobs by 2015 at its engineering hub in Chiswick. This is on top of 1,000 new jobs it has already created in the U.K. over the past two years.

• Good progress continues to be made on the U.K.-Norway power interconnector subsea cable project.

• A new Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Statoil and Centrica to continue cooperation on gas supply and exploration. Last November the companies signed a 10-year gas supply deal worth £13 billion.

"The jobs and investments announced today highlight how vital the strong relationship between Norway and the United Kingdom is for our energy security and economic growth," commented Prime Minister David Cameron. "We look forward to strengthening our partnership further, driving investment into a diverse, sustainable energy mix that delivers affordable long term supplies for consumers."

Prime Minister Stoltenberg added: "We have signed a joint statement today underlining the importance of continuing to develop the energy co-operation between our two countries. I think it is important both for Norway and the U.K.. It creates economic growth, it creates jobs, it creates an even closer relationship between our countries."

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