The European Union looks to be relaxing its opposition to oil and gas production in polar areas, while still calling for all fossil fuels to be kept in the ground in its forthcoming Arctic strategy.
A draft of the strategy, seen by Bloomberg, contains no references to a moratorium on new oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, marking a shift in wording from the EU’s 2021 stance. The wording has been a topic of intense discussions between the trade bloc and Norway, which has lobbied hard for the EU to abandon its climate-based opposition to oil and gas exploration in the high north.
The Nordic nation awarded five oil and gas exploration licenses in the Barents Sea, which is part of the Arctic, in last year’s licensing round and opened up 38 blocks in 2026 for applications. Norway supplied almost a third of the EU’s gas imports last year, including a small part from those fields.
The petroleum industry’s fear was that the EU would pledge not to buy oil and gas from Norway’s new Arctic fields. Instead, the draft says the union will “prioritise” renewable energy sources and hydrocarbons produced outside the Arctic. The European Commission also says it will work toward an international commitment to prevent further development of Arctic oil and gas resources, or purchases from them, when such activity “poses a threat to the Arctic ecosystem”.
In 2021, the EU had said that “building on the partial moratoriums on hydrocarbons exploration in the Arctic” in parts of the US, Canada and Greenland, “the EU is committed to ensuring that oil, coal and gas stay in the ground, including in Arctic regions” and that it would work toward “a multilateral legal obligation not to allow any further hydrocarbon reserve development in the Arctic or contiguous regions, nor to purchase such hydrocarbons if they were to be produced”.
The latest draft also reiterates the EU’s broader commitment to work toward keeping coal, oil and gas in the ground, including in the Arctic, in line with its climate targets. The bloc has set a legally binding goal of cutting net greenhouse gas emissions by 90pc by 2040 from the 1990 level.
A spokesperson for Equinor ASA, which already produces oil and gas and is exploring more fields in the Barents Sea, referred questions to the Energy Department, and a spokesperson for the ministry declined to comment ahead of the strategy’s release.
Environmental groups said the changes don’t amount to a significant retreat by Brussels. Paal Frisvold, who heads the Alliance to Preserve the Moratorium on Oil Drilling in the Arctic, told Bloomberg that he believes the omission of the word moratorium makes the key message on climate stronger, adding “EU is determined to keep fossil fuels in the ground”.
The draft text also maintains the EU’s opposition to deep-sea mining until scientific knowledge gaps have been “satisfactorily filled”. Norway in 2024 approved seabed mining, although no such works have yet started.