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IEA chief urges EU to lift Arctic drilling moratorium
The IEA executive director said the EU should reexamine the 2021 ban after talks with Norway’s finance minister, citing European energy security and supply needs.
The IEA executive director, Fatih Birol, urged the European Union to reverse its moratorium on Arctic drilling, arguing the bloc needs to expand access to supplies from Norway. The EU enacted the ban in 2021, citing its climate commitments and environmental concerns, and it also does not cover Norway’s northern parts of the Barents Sea, which is estimated to hold most remaining Norwegian oil and gas resources.
Norway, which is not an EU member but is Europe’s biggest gas supplier, has been lobbying the bloc to drop opposition to drilling in the Arctic. OilPrice reports that Birol made the case following a meeting in Brussels with Norway’s finance minister, Jens Stoltenberg, and called for the European Commission to closely review the issue due to its importance for European energy security.
Birol said the world needs oil from Norway, as carried by Bloomberg. The argument has been reinforced, OilPrice adds, by the Iran war and what it describes as the biggest oil and gas supply disruption in history, both of which Norway cites to support reliable supply outside of conflict zones.
At the same time, European investors have urged the European Commission to keep the moratorium in place, according to OilPrice. Norway’s broader position is that an arbitrary line defining the Arctic area should not be treated as a hard cutoff for oil and gas drilling.