Current market conditions are making it difficult to sustain drilling operations in Norwegian territorial waters, a procurement director at Statoil said Friday. The bear market for crude oil has forced some in the industry to scale back on their near-term investment forecasts. Brent crude oil prices traded near the $69 per barrel mark Friday for the January contract. Statoil procurement head Jon Arnt Jacobsen said the company was suspending contracts for four rigs because of lower profitability . “This situation is unfortunate, and we are doing what we can to minimize the extent of the suspensions,” he said in a statement. The company last month suspended operations for rigs working in the Barents Sea through the end of the year, including Transocean Spitsbergen, which has a day […]