Case Study 3: Year-Round Petroleum Activities in the Barents Sea

Abstract

In this example the decision problem is whether or not to open the Barents Sea area (including the Lofoten area) for year-round petroleum activities on the Norwegian sector. This is a decision problem that has recently been considered by the Norwegian Government. The background is a growing interest in Barents Sea exploration: The Barents Sea has a great resource potential, the area has not generally been explored much, and it is assumed that the Arctic contains a significant part of the world’s undiscovered petroleum resources. In order to give decision support for year-round petroleum activities in the Barents Sea, a number of assessments were carried out, including assessments of the consequences related to economy, the environment, safety, employment and the fisheries (OLF 2003). Since the area in the Barents Sea is considered vulnerable from an environmental point of view, special attention was given to the consequences related to the environment.