By Dominic Chopping


Equinor ASA said Thursday that along with its partners they have decided to postpone the investment decision for the Wisting field project because of increasing costs and capacity challenges among its suppliers.

The Wisting field in the Barents Sea was discovered in 2013 and is estimated to hold around 500 million barrels of oil equivalent.

A final investment decision was planned for next month, but global inflation, capacity challenges and bottlenecks among suppliers and lead times from yards and equipment suppliers have increased. This has seen expected investments in the field rise to 104 billion Norwegian kroner ($10.02 billion) from an estimate of NOK60 billion-NOK75 earlier this year, the company said.

"In our updated investment estimate for the project, we see a cost increase due to increased global inflation and cost growth in the supply industry nationally and internationally," Geir Tungesvik, Equinor's executive vice president of projects, drilling and procurement, said.

"There is also uncertainty about the framework conditions for the project and execution capacity in the supplier market. Based on an overall assessment, we choose to postpone the investment decision," he added.

Equinor is the operator of Wisting with a 35% stake, while Aker BP ASA also has 35%, Petoro AS has 20% and Inpex Idemitsu Norge AS has 10%.


Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-10-22 0302ET