Equinor makes Norway gas discovery

OSLO (Reuters) -Equinor has made a commercially viable gas discovery in the Norwegian Sea believed to contain between 2 billion and 11 billion cubic metres of recoverable gas, the company said on Wednesday.

The find is located 23 kilometres south of the Irpa gas discovery and also close to the Aasta Hansteen field, Equinor said in a statement.

"We will together with our partners consider tie-back of this discovery to Irpa, for which we recently submitted a plan for development and operation," said Grete Haaland, senior vice president for exploration and production in the area.

"Discoveries near existing infrastructure requires less volume in order to be commercially developed, and can be quickly put on stream with low CO2 emissions," she added.

Named Obelix Upflank, the new find corresponds to between 12.6 million and 69.2 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Operator Equinor holds a 70% stake in the licence while state-owned Petoro holds 20% and Germany's Wintershall Dea has 10%.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Essi Lehto)