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The Balder Field is located on the northwestern margin of the Utsira High in Norwegian Blocks 25/10 and 25/11. The oil is trapped in thick massive submarine-fan sandstones of the Paleocene Heimdal and Hermod Formations and the Early Eocene Balder Formation. These sandstones which were deposited from high-density turbidity currents originating from the East Shetland Platform, are located close to the Paleocene sandstone pinch-out and form thick mounded reservoirs in the field. High-relief mounded geometries are believed to have been caused by a complex interaction between deposition and syn-and post-depositional soft-sediment deformation processes. Slumping, sliding and sand remobilization were the dominant deformational processes. Associated sand injections into overlying shales occurred during the soft-sediment deformation processes which dominantly occurred during Early Eocene. The sandstones which have excellent reservoir properties, appear to be in pressure communication and have a common oil-water contact which is probably related to the soft-sediment deformation processes with associated sand injections.

North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea-has involved drilling about 850 wildcat wells, resulting in about 300 oil and gas finds, of which 84 are fields with production. The recoverable resources of all these finds total about 65 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Almost all these hydrocarbons come from a Jurassic source and the main reservoirs and traps are Jurassic sandstones in fault blocks and Paleocene sandstones or Cretaceous chalks in gentle domes. The article describes four major fields-Ekofisk, Gullfaks, Ormen Lange and Snøhvitto illustrate some of the many challenges in developing and producing the hydrocarbons. Elsewhere in Norden, there has been much less exploration. Drilling results have mostly been negative in mainland Sweden, onshore Denmark, onshore Svalbard and on-and offshore West Greenland. Minor oil finds have been made in Palaeozoic rocks in the Baltic Sea. The first wells have recently been drilled off the Faroe Islands, resulting in one discovery. No drilling has taken place on-or offshore East Greenland. As a result of the hydrocarbon activities in Norway and Denmark, petroleum geoscience there has flourished, with 2000 geoscientists currently employed in the industry, many technical innovations made, a wealth of publically available information and a great increase in the understanding of the geology.

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