The state-owned explorer has submitted to the authorities its assessment of the environmental risk and emergency response capability for the planned probe at the Apollo prospect in the frontier Hoop area, due to be drilled in May by semi-submersible Transocean Spitsbergen.
The 7125/4-3 well - the first of two to be drilled in Statoil-operated production licence 615 - is under close environmental scrutiny as it will be the northernmost well ever to be drilled off Norway, about 175 kilometres south-east of the Bear Island nature reserve and in relative proximity to the Arctic ice edge.
The
