As petroleum exploration activities start along the Norwegian-Russian boundary in the Barents Sea, government and commercial stakeholders are faced with the prospect of discovering trans-boundary deposits.

The Norwegian-Russian delimitation agreement states that trans-boundary fields shall be unitized and developed in cooperation between the license holders on each side of the border. Norway has experience from the application of such mechanisms to cross-border fields along its border with the UK, while Russia has a different set of experiences. Unitization and licensee cooperation will be subject to different legal frameworks. It follows that Russian and Norwegian stakeholders may have differing expectations and approaches toward the management of cross-border deposits.

This project aims to map and compare the practical experience base as well as the legal framework on both sides of the border and assess to what degree expectations and approaches to cross-border field developments differ from each other.

Project period: 2015-2019