Statoil plans to greatly increase its capital expenditures

Statoil announced Thursday an increase in its capital expenditures, in order to increase its daily production to 2.5 million barrels of oil in 2020, compared with two million in 2012.

Oil company and gas Norwegian plans to initially invest 19 billion dollars (14 billion euros) in 2013, then 21 billion dollars a year on average by 2016.

Statoil also said that its last date discovery, a gas field off the coast of Tanzania, contained between 200 and 250 billion meters cubic of gas that it had calculated previously. The Group had previously estimated that the site should offer at least 85 billion m3 of gas to be exploitable.

The rate of replacement reserves amounted to 100 per cent in 2012, a level much higher than those that the Group recorded during the early 2000s, even if it is below the 117% reported in 2011.

Statoil plans to drill 50 wells in 2013, compared to 46 last year, after having met several successful exploration in recent years, especially in the Brazil and the North Sea.

On the fourth quarter of 2012, Statoil reached a net adjusted 48.3 billion Norwegian crowns (EUR 6.49 billion) while analysts had anticipated 45.9 billion.

The group will pay an annual dividend of 6.75 kroner per share, against 6.5 last year.