The Norwegian oil and gas producer, already a leading player in European Arctic waters, announced on Thursday it would get the operatorships and 60 percent of the licences for 16 Chukchi Sea leases won jointly with Italy’s Eni.
The Chukchi Sea, located between Alaska and Russia just north of the Arctic Circle, is a frontier area, covered by ice year-round, and considered to be one of the world’s most vulnerable sea regions.
About 10 percent of the earth’s polar bears live in the area, according to news bureau Newswire, in addition to walruses and whales. Indigenous peoples also live near the Chukchi Sea.
"We recognise this is an ecologically sensitive area and we will work to find the best solution for co-existence," StatoilHydro spokeswoman Kjersti Morstoel said.
Last week, US Senator John Kerry proposed a ban on oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea, reported Newswire.
Among others critical to StatoilHydro’s Alaska plans is the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Norway.
"This is completely unacceptable," WWF Norway head Ingeborg Gjærum told business news service E24.
"It is very sad that Norway is participating in such environmentally-damaging activities... this is extremely embarrassing for both Statoil and Norway," she said.
The Chukchi Sea rights sale, the first since 1991, brought in a record USD 2.66 billion from firms including Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and Respol, according to the US sale organizer, Minerals Management Service (MMS).
MMS believes up to 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie beneath the remote Chukchi Sea on the northwestern coast of Alaska.
To offset decreasing North Sea production, StatoilHydro has also been investing in acreage in the Gulf of Mexico and Canada.
