According to a Financial Times article, a strong lobbying campaign is underway by numerous oil companies and industry associations – including Equinor and a group supported by Shell, TotalEnergies, and ConocoPhillips – aimed at the European Union to abandon the de facto ban on future Arctic drilling.
The companies, the FT writes, are leveraging the issue of energy security to argue that Europe cannot do without Arctic hydrocarbons.
The initiative is criticized by InfluenceMap as an “alarming” attempt to overturn decades of climate policies, exploiting geopolitical instability to reintroduce misleading arguments in favor of fossil fuels rather than renewables.
The EU is nevertheless reviewing its 2021 Arctic strategy, which included an international moratorium, also incorporating defense aspects, with the goal of completing the work before the EU-Arctic forum in September.
The lobbying push
More than ten oil companies and associations, including Equinor and the KonKraft group (representing Offshore Norge and the Federation of Norwegian Industries), responded to an EU public consultation on Arctic policy explicitly calling for the removal of the ban on new drilling.
The central message is summarized by KonKraft’s statement, a Norwegian collaboration platform for the oil and energy sector created to promote the competitiveness of the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS, the Norwegian basin of the North Sea and adjacent areas, including Arctic and sub-Arctic zones such as the Barents Sea).
As KonKraft writes: “There is no European energy security without Arctic energy.”
What is being argued
The companies emphasize that Norway is a predictable and reliable supplier for Europe at a time of significant geopolitical instability.
Nick Walker, CEO of Vår Energi and one of the largest Norwegian gas exporters, recalls that about one-third of the gas consumed in the EU comes from Norway, and that one-third of this share is extracted in the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea, including Arctic and sub-Arctic areas.
Vår Energi also calls for a more precise definition of the concept of “Arctic,” arguing that the Barents Sea is ice-free year-round and therefore does not present the same environmental challenges as more northern areas.
Nareg Terzian, Europe strategy head at the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (which includes Shell, TotalEnergies, and ConocoPhillips), warns that a ban “sends the wrong signal at the worst time” and that limiting production in areas like northern Norway would not reduce global demand but could increase dependence on suppliers with higher CO₂ emission intensity.
InfluenceMap’s criticisms
InfluenceMap, an organization monitoring corporate climate lobbying, describes the campaign as an “alarming push” toward developing new fossil fuel fields that risks undermining decades of efforts to combat climate change.
Analyst Ella Westlake highlights that the industry is trying to exploit geopolitical instability to reintroduce misleading arguments favoring fossil fuels over renewable energy.
Such pressure would also run counter to the EU’s international commitments on both greenhouse gas emission reductions and biodiversity conservation.
The EU Arctic strategy and its revision
In 2021, the European Union committed to working on an update of its Arctic Strategy by promoting an international moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic as part of its regional strategy.
The goal at the time was to build on existing partial moratoria, pushing for oil, coal, and gas to remain underground to protect the region’s fragile environment, combat climate change, and preserve biodiversity. The measure aligned with European emission reduction targets and the energy transition toward renewables.
Today, however, the EU is revising that strategy, which was developed before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the revision is still in its early stages.
A European official confirmed that the process will include energy, environmental, and Arctic defense aspects; the goal is to complete the work in time for the EU-Arctic forum in September.
Fossil resources in the Arctic
The FT recalls that the Arctic region is believed to be rich in significant undiscovered oil and gas reserves, but that any exploration would entail high costs and considerable environmental risks, including climate impacts and ecosystem loss.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), particularly the geological assessments made in its “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal,” an estimated 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids remain to be discovered north of the Arctic Circle.
Similar pressures in other countries
The European debate takes place in a broader context.
Following tensions in the Middle East, the UK Labour government has come under pressure to revoke the ban on new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea,
In the United States, the Trump administration launched auctions this month for drilling rights in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, receiving bids totaling $163 million.
These developments show how the Arctic issue is subject to renewed interest linked to energy security.
