How the Oil Crisis Gave Norway's Giant Field a $10 Billion Boost

Right before Norway’s biggest oil project in decades got the go-ahead in 2015, crude prices fell off a cliff. The crash forced desperate suppliers like platform builders and offshore drillers to cut their prices, allowing Equinor ASA and the other owners of the giant Johan Sverdrup field to trim the project’s cost by as much as 40 percent, or $10 billion. While Norway’s oil-service companies had to slash their fees, Sverdrup’s timing also proved a godsend for them as the sheer size of the project offered a lifeline for an industry suffering its worst crisis in a generation.