State-controlled oil company Statoil ASA struck oil and Norsk Hydro ASA found natural gas in separate exploration wells off western Norway, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate announced Monday. Statoil's discovery was near its existing Sleipner field in the North Sea, about 175 kilometers (110 miles) off the western Norway port of Stavanger, but it was too early to estimate the size of the find, the company said. «It is encouraging that Statoil has made an oil discovery in a little-explored exploration model that is close to our North Sea infrastructure,» said Frode Fasteland, Statoil's acting exploration manager for the North Sea. The company plans to drill a second well to assess the size of the find, a news release said. The petroleum directorate also announced that Norsk Hydro found natural gas and condensate in an exploration well drilled near its Njord field, in the northern North Sea. It said the preliminary estimate of the discovery's size was one to six billion standard cubic meters (35 billion to 210 billion cubic feet) of recoverable natural gas, plus condensate, also called natural gas liquids. «This find increases the chance for developing resources proven on Njord's Northwest flank, as additional reserves to the Njord field,» said Rune Adolfsen, field manager for Norsk Hydros Njord field unit. The Norwegian government has been encouraging oil companies to seek new finds near existing fields to offset declining oil production by linking new discoveries into existing offshore infrastructure, the Associated Press reported.
