Oslo — A Norwegian appeals court ruled on Friday that three offshore oilfield development permits issued by the government were invalid due to a lack of environmental consideration, but gave the state six months to rectify shortcomings.
Production from the fields, meanwhile, would be allowed to continue, the court said. The case was brought by environmental campaigners hoping to block the development of Norway’s oil and gas industry.
Environmentalists argued that the government had failed to assess the environmental impact from the use of the fields’ oil and gas, known as Scope 3 emissions.
“The Court of Appeal believes that the climate impacts from combustion emissions have neither been sufficiently investigated nor assessed,” the Borgarting court said in a statement, adding that the permits did not meet procedural requirements.
“The Court of Appeal’s conclusion is that the approvals of the plans for development and operation are declared invalid.”
One of the reasons the court did not immediately stop production was to ensure Norway continued to deliver stable oil and gas to Europe, it said.
EUROPE’S LARGEST GAS SUPPLIER
Norway produces 2% of global oil and became Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The lawsuit brought by Greenpeace Norway and Young Friends of the Earth Norway in 2023 concerns the approval of Equinor’s Breidablikk and Aker BP’s Tyrving and Yggdrasil fields.
Two fields – Breidablikk and Tyrving – are already producing, while Yggdrasil, Norway’s largest offshore petroleum project since 2019, is scheduled to come on stream in 2027.
Aker BP, in a statement, said the verdict allowed the company to continue its projects.
Equinor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The Court of Appeal is absolutely clear that there is no basis for stopping activity at these fields now,” the attorney general’s office said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
It was likely the verdict would be appealed to the Supreme Court, it added.
Greenpeace said in a statement it was glad the permits had been found invalid.
Its lawyer said all ongoing activities at the fields were “at the companies own risk”.
“Their permits are invalid and could well be denied following new assessments,” Jenny Sandvik, a lawyer at Oslo-based Simonsen Vogt Wiig, who represented the environmentalists, said.
Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis and Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik, Rod Nickel and Diane Craft – Reuters
