Only a few pioneers persevere in the Arctic.

摘要

According to Wood Mackenzie's Andrew Latham, E&P firms can be expected to put Arctic projects on hold in the prevailing price environment. "We will see something of a pullback in high-cost frontiers and the most prominent of those is the Arctic," he said. "I wouldn't expect anyone else to be pushing ahead with Canada, Greenland or other parts of the Arctic until we get a recovery in the price environment." Most such projects have already been postponed, if not cancelled outright. Norwegian Statoil said on Feb. 4 that it may put off developing die Johan Castberg field, and will probably not drill in the Arctic at all this year. ExxonMobil, meanwhile, has been forced by sanctions to pull out of its j.v. with Rosneft of Russia in the Kara Sea, Chevron has abandoned—or at least indefinitely postponed—drilling plans for Canada's Beaufort Sea, and Statoil, Dong Energy of Denmark, and GDF Suez of France have gone so far as to return licenses they have received for drilling in Greenland's waters.