STATOIL MAKES GAS

Norwegian energy firm Statoil has made a gas discovery near the Aasta Hansteen field in the northern part of the Norwegian Sea, the company said on Tuesday.

"The Snefrid Nord discovery increases the resource base for the Aasta Hansteen field development project by around 15 percent," Irene Rummelhoff, Statoil's senior vice president of exploration Norway, said.

Preliminary calculations put the find at between five and nine billion standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable gas, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said in a separate statement.

The discovery will now be further evaluated for future tie-in to the Aasta Hansteen infrastructure, Statoil said.

The partners in the licence are Statoil with 51 percent, Wintershall, the oil and gas arm of chemicals group BASF , with 24 percent, OMV with 15 percent and ConocoPhillips with 10 percent.

reuters.com