Norway , which has watched its crude output fall every year since 2000, wants to attract large producers to compete with Statoil ASA (STL) as the state-controlled company cancels and delays key projects. Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer now needs a broader group of big companies with the technological know-how and financial strength to help develop resources, Petroleum and Energy Minister Tord Lien said. “We need more large players,” Lien, who took power in October, said yesterday in an interview in Oslo. Statoil last year delayed an investment decision on its Johan Castberg oil project in the Arctic Barents Sea, citing rising costs and a tax increase by the previous government. It then pushed back by a year the start of its Johan Sverdrup field, delaying what may be the biggest Norwegian oil discovery since 1974. The company also scrapped plans for a pipeline to the Kristin […]