Statoil awards $1.2 billion in offshore contracts

Norwegian energy company Statoil said it awarded contracts worth an estimated $1.2 billion for work on the country's continental shelf.

Statoil awarded long-term contracts to field services companies Beerenberg Corp. and Prezioso Linjebygg, both of which are based in Norway. Once all contracts enter into force, the companies will be working to provide services to more than a dozen of Statoil's installations on the Norwegian continental shelf.

"The suppliers understand the industry challenges and want to help solve them," Jon Arnt Jacobsen, a vice president helping with procurements at Statoil, said in a statement.

The Norwegian government said its oil-driven economy has been pressured by lower crude oil prices, with overall investments expected to show a 12 percent decline once all data are in for 2015.

Statistics Norway, the government's data-recording agency, blamed a decline in petroleum activities for a 4.7 percent decline in total revenue for the second quarter of last year. For 2016, the agency said total investment in the energy sector is estimated at $23.6 billion, a 1.4 percent increase from the estimate for the previous year.

Statoil has cut costs outside of Norway as lower crude oil prices put negative pressure on investment activities. The company in December canceled a contract with Transocean to lease the Discoverer Americas for work in the deep U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

In mid-December, the Norwegian government said the decline in crude oil prices contributed to a net decrease of nearly 5 percent in the production value in the extraction and related services industries.