Equinor is marking 50 years of operations in Northern Norway. After five decades of investment and value creation, the company is planning for high activity and growth in the region for many decades to come.
The Harstad office was opened in 1976 by then Statoil CEO Arve Johnsen as the company’s first establishment outside Stavanger.
Today, Equinor produces more than half a million barrels of oil equivalent per day in Northern Norway — around 35 percent of the company’s own production on the Norwegian continental shelf. This makes Northern Norway an important energy province for European energy security.
“Equinor has achieved a lot in Northern Norway over 50 years. We have built strong professional environments and created major value for the company, the region and Norway. Our operations have helped develop the supplier industry and created skilled jobs and ripple effects throughout the region,” says CEO Anders Opedal.
Equinor currently has more than 1,200 employees in Nordland, Troms and Finnmark. From Harstad, Equinor operates the Norne and Aasta Hansteen fields in the Norwegian Sea, as well as Snøhvit and Johan Castberg in the Barents Sea. Gas from Snøhvit is processed into LNG at Melkøya in Hammerfest.
At the same time, activity among suppliers in the north is growing. Northern Norwegian suppliers work on maintenance, modifications, projects and operations on Equinor’s installations and onshore facilities. The value of deliveries from Northern Norwegian companies has increased from NOK 2.6 billion in 2023 to an estimated NOK 4 billion in 2025 (source: the Levert report).
“Looking ahead, we see several major opportunities in Northern Norway. We have discoveries that are still to be developed as subsea developments tied back to our existing fields. There are also still significant oil and gas resources yet to be proven, so we will continue exploration in both the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. Equinor will continue to invest and grow in the north,” says Opedal.
On behalf of the partnership, Equinor has already started developing Isflak — the first subsea field to be tied back to Johan Castberg. Over the past year, the company has also made the Drivis Tubåen and Polynya discoveries in the area. For Drivis Tubåen, an investment decision has already been made, and the discovery will be tied into existing infrastructure at Johan Castberg.
“We are working to increase the resource base and extend plateau production from Johan Castberg, and we therefore plan to drill one to two exploration wells annually in the area going forward,” says Grete Birgitte Haaland, Equinor’s senior vice president for Exploration and Production North.
The resource base for Johan Castberg was originally estimated at 500–700 million barrels of oil. Equinor aims to increase this by a further 200–500 million barrels through continued exploration and development in the area.
