China’s CNOOC starts exploring for Icelandic oil

Surface exploration began last month in the Dreki area off Iceland, in an area licensed to China’s state owned oil company CNOOC (中海油) together with two minority partners, Norway’s Petoro and local company Eykon Energy. Measurements were conducted on the Oceanic Challenger, that operated from Reyðarfjörður with a crew of 60, and a support vessel. (News I reported in June indicated the operation would be exempt from port fees.) This first stage of exploration was expected to last for around three weeks (at any rate the ship is already in Dunkirk).

Eykon chairman Heiðar Már Guðjónsson says the plan is to conduct exploration drilling in three phases, in 2020, 2022 and 2023. The area is quite expensive to explore, and estimates about possible hydrocarbon reserves tend to be rather speculative due to the presence of a thick layer of basaltic lava that makes ascertaining the presence of any oil at all rather tricky without boring actual holes through it. Heyðar Már and others from Eykon have attracted a lot of attention in the past with estimates in the high gazillions, but hardly anyone else is half that upbeat. No oil majors showed interest in Dreki licenses when they were for grabs, and the holders of one of the three awarded licenses, Faroe Petroleum, actually gave up on it last year. CNOOC, on the other hand, are enthusiastic enough to invest in exploration, while keeping remarkably quiet about it (no information on Icelandic oil has shown up on Chinese media).