Aasta Hansteen 'will return a 6% profit'

Norway's Petroleum & Energy Ministry has provided new figures estimating that the giant Aasta Hansteen field operated by Equinor (formerly Statoil) off Norway has a positive pre-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of around 6%.

The Nkr38 billion ($4.6 billion) Aasta Hansteen scheme and associated Nkr23 billion Polarled pipeline project have faced criticism from environmental groups such as WWF for being loss-makers.