Tullow Oil, one of the Britain's most successful exploration groups, has made its first discovery in the Arctic in a move which will encourage more drilling and anger green groups campaigning against fossil fuel extraction in the region.
Shares in Tullow climbed more than 3% as well operator OMV said it had struck a reservoir in the Barents Sea off the far north of Norway which could contain up to 160m barrels of oil and 40bn cubic feet of recoverable gas.
"This is a major frontier light oil discovery for Norway, Tullow Oil and our co-venturers. We look forward to pursuing the exciting exploration and appraisal follow up arising from this breakthrough discovery," said Angus McCoss, exploration director at Tullow, which holds a 20% stake in the prospect.
"The well results are a breakthrough for the regional exploration activities as the presence of good quality oil shows the possible large potential of an area, which will see more exploration drilling in the near future," said OMV in a statement.
The Austrian company said the production licence 537 in which the well was drilled could hold as much as 500m barrels of oil equivalent based on similar geological evidence nearby.
Tullow has become a stock market favourite on the back of major discoveries in Uganda and Ghana that helped establish those African nations as new oil producers.
The company, led by Irishman Aidan Heavey, has also become the targets of various campaign groups who have accused it of political lobbying, tax avoidance and even bribery, allegations it has steadfastly denied.
But the oil strike in the far north is a significant step for Tullow, which last autumn bought a 40% stake in exploration acreage of Greenland just weeks after the boss of French oil group, Total, said drilling in the Arctic should be abandoned because of the potential reputational and environmental damage if there was an oil spill.
In March this year a new government in Greenland put a moratorium on the granting of fresh oil and gas licences in its Arctic waters but existing licences are still valid. British oil company Cairn Energy, which pioneered a new bout of exploration off Greenland two years ago, said it would resume its controversial exploration in that area in 2014.
Greenpeace has made protection of the far north one of its key campaigns and last month its Arctic Sunrise vessel was chased out of Arctic waters by Russian coast guards after it approached a drill rig working for Moscow-based oil company, Rosneft.
Russia and Norway signed an historic agreement to carve up the Barents Sea between them in 2010, a move which was expected to herald much more drilling in the region.
The Oslo government unveiled 20 new exploration licences in the Barents during the summer and Statoil has already made big finds in the more southerly part of the Barents
Andrew Whittock, an oil analyst with Liberum Capital in London, said the Tullow find was significant although these were early days to try to assess the reservoir's ultimate potential. "This proves a new shallow play in the region. Good news but (it) needs more appraisal."
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Shares in the company surged following the decision at the Commercial Court in London and closed up 17pc at 219p, edging its valuation towards £2bn.
Analysts said the defeat of the $1.6bn (£1bn) claim would make AIM-listed Gulf Keystone more attractive to big oil buyers keen to exploit Kurdistan.
The case was brought by Excalibur Ventures, which said it was entitled to 30pc of the Shaikan oilfield. The land is believed to hold at least 12 billion barrels of oil.
Excalibur sued Gulf Keystone and Texas Keystone, a company founded by Gulf Keystone chief executive Todd Kozel, which holds a small share in the oilfield in trust for Gulf Keystone.
Mr Kozel said: “We are very pleased to have achieved the best possible outcome from the point of view of the company and our shareholders
Starting next year, the European Union plans to spend $30 billion in 28 countries on transportation, much of it on rail modernization, to integrate about 20 intersecting national rail networks. Yet even after years of such investment, member states have struggled to put in place a sophisticated, unified system as state-owned monopolies gave way to private, competing train operators.
The result is a sometimes confused patchwork of old and new systems, where high-speed 21st-century trains often run on 19th-century rails made for slower trains and less traffic. The most advanced automatic braking systems are frequently absent at important junctures, while more responsibility for safety falls on drivers who have been left alone in the cab as budget cuts reduce train employees.
While each of the recent crashes in Europe had its own circumstances, these factors were shared, according to different countries’ trade unions, which contend that the accidents reveal not so much the failings of any one driver than those of an increasingly precarious system.
“This is a system that is more vulnerable from our point of view; it’s totally in transition, changing from an old system to a new system,” said Sabine Trier, the deputy general secretary of the European Transport Workers’ Federation. “A series of accidents in such a short period of time and in countries that normally have sophisticated systems raises a lot of questions.”
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