Europe

Europe

Russian, Norwegian premiers discuss energy cooperation

21 July 2011 00:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Russian and Norwegian prime ministers on Wednesday discussed energy cooperation in light of the two countries’ maritime delimitation treaty that recently entered into force, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

"Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Norwegian counterpart Jens Stoltenberg discussed by phone urgent issues of bilateral trade and economic cooperation with the focus on interaction in the power industry," Peskov said.

The Russian-Norwegian treaty on maritime delimitation and cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean came into force on July 7. The document was signed in September 2010 after nearly 40-year-long talks to define the exclusive economic zones and delimitate the continental shelf.

The treaty defines the borders of both states’ sovereign rights and jurisdiction, as well as envisions that the countries continue fishing cooperation and outlines the procedure to jointly use trans-border hydrocarbon deposits.

The document will allow Russia and Norway to explore oil and gas fields on the Arctic continental shelf at an area of 175,000 sq km (43.2 million acres). The continental part of the Arctic may contain some 13% of the global unexplored oil reserves and 30% of gas reserves.

The countries will also be able to produce oil and gas at sections that were earlier disputed.