What will happen to Norway if it runs out of oil?

It will seriously affect the labor market.

On January 15, 2019, Norwegian Petroleum Industry Minister Kjell-B?rge Freiberg announced at the National Petroleum Industry Seminar that Norway had issued 83 exploration and mining licenses to 33 oil companies in 2019 certificate. Last year, the number was just 75. The biggest winner remains Statoil (formerly Statoil, Equinor in March 2018), with 29 exploration and mining licenses. Norwegian companies Aker BP and DNO follow closely with 21 and 18 respectively; the remaining 15 are divided between Total, Conoco, Shell and other international giants.

Freiburg's eyebrows are not out of politeness, as the small, wealthy Nordic country's treasure trove of North Sea oil fields is running dry, leaving 50-year-old Norwegian Petroleum if it cannot increase oil exploration and discover new oil. Industry may be on its way out of history in the near future. In 2018, Norway's average daily oil production was 1.49 million barrels per day, a 6.3% decrease from the previous year's 1.59 million barrels per day. If compared to its peak in 2001, this number is only half of what it was during that time. According to estimates from the Norwegian National Petroleum Council, the North Sea oil fields have been determined to have no future.

From crude seismic wave physical exploration to detailed drilling and core sample exploration, to cost accounting and development permit applications, the development of subsea oil fields has taken a long time, which often takes more than five to ten years. time. Over the past decade, discoveries of oil reserves on the Norwegian continental shelf have been unsatisfactory. Not only are they not on par with the large fields discovered in the 1970s and 1980s, they cannot even make up for the decline in production from the older fields. What is even more frightening is that, except for the Johan Sverdrup oil field and the Johan Castelberg oil field, which will be developed in 2023, the Norwegian oil industry can no longer find suitable recoverable oil fields. This means that after 2030, Norway's oil production will decline sharply. Once the oil industry declines, it will not only mean that this fiscal revenue will not be lost, but it will also seriously affect the Norwegian labor market.